Courtesy of Yale Athletics

Following last weekend’s tournament win in Hamilton, New York, the Yale men’s golf team is headed to the legendary Bethpage Red Course in Farmingdale, New York, to play the Doc Gimmler hosted by St. John’s.

The Bulldogs dominated last week’s event, the Alex Lagowitz Memorial, finishing with a 15-stroke lead. The tournament was the team’s first event as a squad in almost 23 months, following the Ivy League cancellation of athletic competition for four seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yale was the only team to finish under par for the weekend.

“I think we’re all just gonna try and build off last week,” captain Teddy Zinsner ’22 said. “It’s always nice to win the first event of the year and then carry some momentum into the rest of the season, and I know everyone just wants to keep it going. We played well last week, but I don’t think anyone would say they played their best, so just building off that is probably the main thing.”

In 2019, Yale finished second out of 14 teams who competed in the Doc Gimmler Invitational. The best Eli performers that weekend were Zisner and then-first year Gabriel Ruiz ’24, who finished tied fifth and seventh, respectively. Unlike last week’s event, which calculated team scores by taking four out of the best six players’ scores from each round of 18 holes, this week’s event returns to the more standard four out of five format.

First-year golfer Blake Brantley ’25 will be travelling with the team but will not be participating in the event, Ruiz said. First year Robert You ’25, meanwhile, will compete in the Doc Gimmler but will play as an individual — his scores will not be eligible for the team’s total tally. He occupied the same role at last weekend’s Lagowitz Memorial.

“Last week we played well, but everyone on the team knows that they could have played better,” You said. “Individually, we know what we need to work on. We know that we are in a good spot to try and win this weekend.”

Ruiz, Zinsner, Ben Carpenter ’25, Kevin Wu ’23 and Darren Lin ’22 will make up Yale’s starting five this weekend. The tournament begins on Saturday, Sept. 11, when golfers will play for two rounds before completing a third and final round on Sunday.

Bethpage Red is a par-70 course listed at 7,092 total yards, according to the tournament’s Golfstat live scoring website.

“I’m excited going into this weekend,” Carpenter, the only first year in Yale’s starting five, said. “I played a few junior tournaments at Bethpage Red and have always loved playing the course in the fall. Hopefully we can keep some momentum going from last week and keep a positive attitude throughout the weekend.”

The last time the Elis played the Doc Gimmler, they finished just nine shots behind first-place finisher Navy.

EUGENIO GARZA GARCíA
Eugenio Garza García covers baseball, golf and athletic phasing. Originally from Monterrey, Mexico, he is a sophomore in Branford College majoring in Economics and English.