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The golf team got its first look at much of its Ivy League competition at the Princeton Invitational over the weekend.
Cornell’s golf team got its first look at most of its Ivy League competition this year at the Princeton Invitational over the weekend. The team performed solidly in the first round, with sophomore Max Koehler leading the way with a 70 — his first under-par score of the year — to a team score of 289, just three strokes behind Yale and Georgetown for the lead. The team fell apart during the second round, finishing with a team score of 313, putting the Red in eighth place. After a strong final round, Cornell finished eighth in the 14-team field.
In the first round, everyone on the team played consistently, with sophomore Craig Esposito finishing with an even-par 71 and sophomore Zack Bosse shooting a 72 to back up Kohler’s 70. Senior John Dean and sophomore Carl Schimenti supported them with solid rounds of 76 and 77, respectively.
“We started off real well in the first round on Saturday,” Dean said. “I don’t know how it happened, but we lost our rhythm and momentum going into the second round on Saturday and kind of blew up. We had a good finish on Sunday, but it’s unfortunate we messed up the second round.”
The team shot 24 strokes higher in the second round, with only Schimenti improving from his first round score. Esposito and Koehler both saw significant drop offs, as they shot scores of 84 and 82, respectively.
“Consistency is clearly an issue,” Dean said. “With the second round … We had an awkward break in our time between rounds and may have gotten a little stiff and mentally weren’t quite there going into the beginning of the second round and it clearly showed in our first few holes of the second round. If you don’t count our second round, we were right in the thick of things.”
Cornell finished strong with a team score of 294 in the final round, led by Schimenti’s one-under 70. He finished tied for 27th in the 74-player field to lead the Red.
This invitational also afforded the Red an opportunity to stake out some of its other Ivy League competition. According to Schimenti, the Cornell team came away impressed, as the golfers realize the tough competition they will face in the upcoming weeks. All five Ivy League teams in the field finished ahead of the Red.
The Red has another chance to top the other Ivy League competition this upcoming weekend at the Century Intercollegiate Tournament. The Cornell team recognizes that this tournament may be more difficult than the last due to the course, according to Dean.
“We’re going to try and do our best to maintain consistency throughout the tournament, and put in two solid rounds in this two-round tournament,” he said. “It may get a little interesting, since the course we’ll be playing on will be pretty difficult compared to Princeton’s course. We’ll definitely have to work on our long game to make sure its fine tuned for this weekend.”