The golf team fell to Harvard, 7-1, in a match-play exhibition held in Hobe Sound, Fla. over Spring Break. The match, however, will not count towards the overall season record, but rather served as a warm-up for the golf team as it heads into its spring season, according to senior co-captain Alex Lavin.
Although Cornell lost by a sizeable margin, the game provided a few positives for the team to build on as the season progresses. Senior John Dean and Lavin pointed to sophomores Zach Bosse and Carl Schimenti as top performers during the week leading up to, as well as during, the Harvard match.
“Our consistent starters [sophomore Craig Esposito,] Carl and Zack all played very well over break,” Dean said. “Zack’s game in particular was very good.”
Both Lavin and Dean said that the rest of the team gave strong performances as well, noting that the players’ swings looked polished, especially after a long hiatus from play.
“Something that went particularly well across the board was that everyone’s swing looked pretty solid,” Lavin said. “Especially after such a long layoff in the offseason, it is good to see that everyone swing was in such good shape. However, moving forward — especially with a long offseason — people lose touch and we need to work on our short games.”
Next weekend the Red travels to Towson in Prospect Bay, Md. to participate in the Fireline Invitational. The tournament has 22 teams in the field and is played on what, according to Lavin, can be generally regarded as an easy golf course. The co-captain said he believes that it will help the Red shake the rust and get back into competition mode.
“We are playing at Towson and the course is not one of the more difficult ones that we will play,” Lavin said. “It’s really a good venue for our first spring event because it allows players to get back into competition and have a warm-up tournament before Ivy League play, where typically we see some championship golf courses.”
This tournament marks the beginning of the team’s official season and the Red will look to build momentum heading into conference play, where the team will face a very deep Ivy League that has not been seen in a long time, according to Lavin.
“People have said Columbia and Yale are the two top teams,” he said. “As I’ve said the Ivy League is very deep this year, deeper than it has ever been. People have also been talking about Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and even Penn so we need to step up and take the title.”
Original Author: Zach Gayner