Men's Golf Finishes Sixth at Ivies

Two freshmen led the Harvard men’s golf team as the squad closed out its season at the Ivy League Championship this weekend at the Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland.

Heading into the final day of competition, freshman Un Cho sat in fourth place individually, just three shots from the title spot.

“Un played extremely well the first two days,” Harvard coach Kevin Rhoads said. “He was sick, fighting a fever and an infection and yet he still played amazingly the first two days.”

Battling illness, Cho had a shakier third round that included a penalty point for an error on the last hole. Cho shot a nine-over 79 to drop to 12th place, just outside of the top 10. Cho was Harvard’s top finisher as the team took sixth place in the Ancient Eight contest.

“His body got a bit tired the last round so that’s too bad,” Rhoads said. “He did come back really nicely in the third round and put a nice score and that’s including a penalty for something inadvertent on the last hole.”

Stamina and pacing proved key as champion Princeton closed out the tournament with a weekend-low third round score of 288. Rookie of the Year Quinn Prchal was one of two players to finish the final round one under par, as he helped the Tigers win the championship with the lowest overall score since 2009 and edge out second-place Yale by five shots. Prchal’s teammate Greg Jarmas captured the individual title with a score of 213, just three shots over par and 11 shots better than Cho.

Cho was followed by fellow freshman Rohan Ramnath, who bounced back from a tough first day to finish in 21st place. Ramnath encountered trouble on the final hole of his first round, hitting a quadruple-bogey for a round that went 11-over par. The rookie struggled with his short game early.

“I’d say the first two days I didn’t really putt all that well,” Ramnath said. “I didn’t really make any short putts and I wasn’t really leaving my long putts close, so I struggled a little bit with the putter.”

Despite early difficulty, Ramnath fought back over the next two rounds, hitting eight over par through the rest of the weekend.

“I think I played pretty well for the most part all three days, except the first day I just had one or two shots that cost me big time,” Ramnath said.

Junior captain Theodore Lederhausen and classmate Michael Lai, along with sophomore Akash Mirchandani, rounded out the team, all finishing within six strokes of Ramnath. Lederhausen shot two above Ramnath with a score of 231, while Lai, in his first Ivy Championship appearance, was just a stroke behind at 232.

The team, which graduated two key seniors from the Class of 2012, fell back two spots from its fourth place finish last year.

“I’d be lying if I had said we were happy about our performance,” Ramnath said. “We’ve put in a lot of work this season and we were hoping it would pay off at Ivies but it didn’t quite get there. We’re looking forward to next year.”

Turnover of key players was not a problem unique to the Crimson. Penn and Dartmouth, who tied for the title last season, fell to third and fifth place, respectively.

The tournament was held in Owings Mills, M.D., a considerable distance south of any Ivy school, bringing more favorable conditions, but a definite change from the chill of Cambridge.

“The greens were really fast, probably the fastest greens we played on our year,” Ramnath said. “The practice round on the first day took us a little bit of time to get used to them because the greens up in Boston haven’t been that fast recently because of the long winter. They were challenging but definitely fair.”

The team will return its full five-man roster next season, and the crop of young talent, as shown by the strong freshman finishes, holds promise for the coming year.

“Both of us [freshmen] put in a lot of work this year,” Ramnath said. “We’re very committed. The fact that we were the two highest finishers on the team shows that we’ll only get better as the years go own. We’re very excited for the new freshmen next year and we know they’ll be giving us a run for our money.”

—Staff writer Cordelia F. Mendez can be reached at cordeliamendez@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @CrimsonCordelia.