Golf: Princeton places 13th on difficult course in Big 5 Classic

The men’s golf team tied for 13th place in the Big Five Invitational Tournament at Plymouth Country Club in Norristown, Pa., this past weekend. The 22-team field was led by Dartmouth, which won with a plus-18.

“We had a tough tournament as a team this past weekend,” junior Bernie D’Amato said. “We had a strong finish at Yale’s tournament last week; therefore, our expectations were high going into the weekend, but we came up short.”

Seven out of the eight Ivy League teams were represented in this tournament, with Penn and Harvard both finishing ahead of Princeton. Penn tied for fourth place and Harvard finished 12th, one stroke ahead of Princeton, which came in at plus-42. Yale, Cornell and Brown all finished behind Princeton, with Brown taking last place with a plus-88.

The Tigers were led by senior newcomer Rob Owen. He finished with a plus-5 and tied Max Marsico of Penn for ninth place individually. Joe Maziar and Peter Williamson, both from Dartmouth, were the only other Ivy League players to score higher. Seniors Evan Harmeling and Chase Woodsum, D’Amato and sophomore Greg Jarmas also all contributed points for the Tigers.

One of the difficulties the Princeton team had to deal with was the quality of the course at Plymouth Country.

“The team struggled to adapt to the narrow course this weekend that had very small greens,” Woodsum said. “The course was a big change from the weekend before at Yale, which was pretty open with huge greens.”

“The course was a dog track,” Harmeling said. “They should race dogs on the course instead of playing golf on it.”

This tournament was the Tigers’ second-to-last event of their fall season. “We should be able to find our games after a good week of practice,” D’Amato said. “I am excited for our final tournament of the fall.”

The Tigers’ final tournament of the fall is the Classic at Shelter Harbor next weekend in Charlestown, R.I. The team will resume play with more tournaments in the spring, including the Ivy League championship.