Men's Golf Competes in Gifford Collegiate Invitational

Rounding out the fall portion of its season, the Harvard men’s golf team took a trip to sunny Southern California to compete in the Gifford Collegiate Invitational hosted by UCLA. At the end of three full days of play, the Crimson came away placing 13th out of 15 participants.

Harvard was the only Ancient Eight squad making the trek to the La Costa Legends Course in Carlsbad, Calif. The Crimson was joined at the tournament by a pair of top-25 opponents. Stanford came into the event ranked fifth in the nation, while Texas A&M entered at No. 25. Seven additional schools in the top 50 were also present, including No. 26 South Florida and No. 28 UCLA. However, unranked Washington came out on top at invite’s conclusion, shooting a -6 to best the Cardinal by nine strokes.

“This was as strong of a field of teams as we’ll be seeing in a regular season event ever,” Harvard coach Kevin Rhoads said. “If we really played at the top of our game, I thought we’d finish a little bit better than we ended up, more towards the middle of the pack, but I thought it was pretty good in general.”

The course played at par 71 over its 6,996-yard duration. The invite was the first 72-hole event the Crimson has competed in since its season-opening tilt at the Doc Gimmler in September, as well as its first weekday tournament of the year. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday each featured a full 18 holes of play. Harvard played its best round as a team on Tuesday, combining for a score of 293, nine strokes over par.

“I think we played okay as a team, but each of us could’ve done better,” Harvard sophomore Hale Furey said. “It was a solid showing, but there’s definitely plenty for us to improve on going forward.”

At the end of the second day, the Crimson was positioned tied with No. 25 Texas A&M as the 10th place team at the event, just ahead of Wisconsin. But in round three Harvard was only able to combine for a 301, better than only Marquette and San Jose State, falling back to 13th.

“Overall, I think the course played really tough over the three days,” Furey said. “The greens in particular were a lot faster than what we’re used to in the Northeast, and the pin placements on different holes were challenging and made shots really difficult and tricky at times.”

On the individual side, Harvard was led by juniors Daniel De La Garza and Robert Deng. Both players shot a 219, putting them six-over-par and tied for 24th place overall. De La Garza’s third-round 71 was the best individual round score for a Crimson player and good enough for even par. Freshman Aurian Capart finished at +13, tied with 49th-ranked Thomas Lim of Oregon for 56th overall. There was a three-way tie for individual champion, with Chris Babcock and Corey Pereira, both representing Washington, joining Stanford’s nationally top-ranked Maverick McNealy at -4.

“Everyone had their stretches where they played really well over the course of the tournament,” Rhoads said. “The guys were really motivated coming in because of the quality of competition, and I think they’ll use the experience they gained here to move forward and play well in the spring half of the season.”

Moving forward, the Crimson will take a four-month hiatus from tournament play, with its next invite coming over spring break in March. Then, Harvard will begin its second half of the divided season and continue its quest for an elusive Ivy League Championship.

“Right now, we’re all going to take a two-week break from golf to just be normal students and enjoy Harvard for a bit,” Furey said. “Then, most of us will go home and play a lot of golf over J-term and come back ready and motivated for the spring season to start.”

—Staff writer Jed Rothstein can be reached at jrothstein@college.harvard.edu.