Golf Kicks Off Annual Invite

The golf team will not have to travel far this weekend as it hosts the annual Cornell Invitational, kicking off tomorrow at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Course. Sixteen teams will compete in the two-day, 54-hole competition. Teams competing include defending champion St. Bonaventure, with Ivy League competitors Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn and Princeton.
[img_assist|nid=32109|title=Under pressure|desc=Junior Robert Cronheim led Cornell in scoring last season and is the Red’s sole upperclassman as the Red host its annual invite.|link=node|align=left|width=|height=0]
After a two-week layoff since its most recent tournament, the Navy Fall Invitational, the Red has steadily continued to fine tune their game. The team members have each focused on specific aspects of their personal games, along with achieving consistency as a team.
“Practice has been great,” said junior Robert Cronheim, who led the team in scoring last season and is the Red’s sole upperclassman this year. “We’ve played well as a team. Everybody is getting into game shape and getting ready to go.”
“It’s tough to balance class with practice,” added sophomore Dan Bosse, who shot a team-best 142 at the Navy Invitational, tied for fourth place overall. “But we’ve been practicing for two hours a day. Everybody has been working really hard, hopefully it will pay off.”
Being the home team, the Red does feel an added sense of both pressure and excitement heading into the weekend. There is an extra expectation to perform well, as all eyes will be on them. There is also, however, an advantage to playing on a course so familiar to the whole team.
“There is a little bit more pressure,” Bosse said. “It’s your tournament, you want to perform well, but that is balanced out by the fact that you know the course and are going to feel very comfortable.”
In Cronheim’s eyes, the Red’s mentality is no different heading into this weekend than any other tournament.
“As a team, we expect to win every time we tee it up,” Cronheim said. “We have the same approach week in and week out, plus now we have the added benefit of playing on our own course. It’s a really good opportunity to prove ourselves.”
Another unique aspect of this tournament that gives the Red a different approach than normal is the fact that the Red will have two teams competing rather than just one. Both an A team and a B team will play, meaning all 10 members of the squad will get a dose of competition.
“We have a very deep team,” Bosse said. “Top to bottom, everyone can compete.”