While the actual storm had already finished by Saturday, the women’s golf team still seemed a little under the weather this weekend.
Suffering from lack of practice due to last week’s rain, the Bulldogs finished eighth out of 14 teams in the Nittany Lion Invitational this past weekend at Penn State. In both rounds, Yale shot 312 for a grand total of 624, bringing them 24 shots short of the tournament winner, UC Irvine.
Captain January Romero ’06 led the Elis by shooting 75 and 76 in her two rounds. Her combined total of 151 was good for 10th place overall.
Following Romero’s performance, Ellie Brophy ’08 finished 22nd with a 155, Cindy Shin ’07 and Lindsay Hong tied for 34th with a 159, and Jessica Shapiro ’06 came in 57th with a 167.
Due to the seven straight days of torrential rains and strong winds, the Yale golf course was flooded this past Wednesday, causing the practice schedule to be inconsistent the week prior to the tournament. Not being able to practice affected the performance of the team, Shin said.
“It was really made it hard for me to get into the groove of playing golf again,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Since many of the schools competing in the tournament were also coming from the hard-hit New England region, Brophy said, Yale’s unexceptional performance could not be blamed solely on poor weather conditions.
“Most of the schools were in the same position going into the tournament,” Brophy said.
She said inconsistency problems have troubled the golf team this season and continued to afflict the team this past weekend.
“We’re working on the ability to play more consistently, to be able to put four scores together for the same round,” Brophy said.
But there were highlights during the Elis’ performance. Shin said she hit the ball very well, finding the fairway nearly every time, and Romero said she was impressed with the team’s resilience.
While members of the team said they did not play as well as they had hoped to this past tournament, they said overall the season has been successful. The team finished second at both the Princeton Invitational and the Yale Intercollegiate earlier this fall.
“We have yet to win a tournament, but every tournament is a lesson for us and we are taking baby steps to get better,” Shin said. “We have a talented group of golfers.”
Romero said there is a high level of ability in this year’s team, which has potential in coming tournaments.
“We are all capable of shooting well, it is just a matter of us all doing it at the same time,” Romero said.
The team looks to sunnier days in the future, when they will travel to Southern Pines, N.C. to play in the Ross Resorts Invitational on Oct. 30, their last tournament this fall.
Romero said she hopes for more than just good weather in North Carolina.
“A team goal, I think, would be to go out with a bang, and finish the season with our best tournament yet,” she said.