M., w. golf to compete in Ivy League Championships

The men's and women's golf teams will finish their Ivy League season this weekend with the 2003 Ivy League Championships.

The men will hope to retain the title as the women try to regain the top spot from Yale. While each team has had rather chaotic seasons, both the men and women stand poised for another Ivy League title.

On the women's side, the Ivy League contenders will play at the famed Ridgewood Country Club in Ridgewood, N.J. Designed by world-renowned course architect A.W. Tillinghast, who is known for tight fairways and extremely difficult greens, the Tigers will face a course of 5,938 yards with a par of 72. Home of the 1990 U.S. Senior Open and the 2001 Senior PGA Championship, Ridgewood will no doubt prove to be one of the most difficult courses that the competitors see all season.

While 2002 saw an Ivy Championship with teams all separated by at least twenty strokes, women's golf within the Ivies has become increasingly more competitive. With Brown's 308-316 victory at home two weeks ago under horrible conditions, they are presently the Ivy favorites. While only finishing third at last year's tournament, Brown has won two consecutive tournament titles this month — the Bucknell Lady Bison Invitational and the Brown Spring Invitational.

Yale comes into the tournaments with the confidence of winning four out of the last six Ivy League Championships. They return two golfers from last year's championship season. Yale sophomore Stephanie Wei has produced three consecutive rounds of sub-80 scores this season and many argue she might be one of the few within the Ivy League to be able to challenge the dominance of Princeton sophomore Avery Kiser, who won medalist honors at the JMU Invitational.

The men go into Saturday's tournament as defending champions, but are by no means guaranteed victory. While having a strong fall season, the men have struggled with consistency as well as the weather and have only one victory under their belt. A win this weekend would be the Tigers fourth consecutive Ivy League Championship and would give them an automatic bid to the NCAA regional tournament.

Play will be at the prestigious Metedeconk golf club in southern New Jersey. The Tigers will play 27 holes on both Saturday and Sunday on this Robert Trent Jones Sr. course famous for its treacherous greens and nearly impenetrable rough. The Tigers have won every championship ever played at Metedeconk.

The men will also face a powerful Eli squad. Yale, who placed second at last year's championship, has benefited from All-Ivy golfer Neel Williams. Williams placed first at the George Washington Invitational, which was Princeton's only team win in the spring.

After the cancellation of Princeton's only home tournament for the spring, the Tigers have struggled to maintain a competitive edge. Out of competitions since its disastrous 12th place finish at Navy on April 6, the Tigers will need a strong showing from the entire team. With the spring season lacking a significant standout, look for senior Cassidy Traub and freshman Jason Gerken to take the lead.

If there is a front-runner going into the weekend, it just might be the Quakers. Penn has finished second two of the last three years at Metedeconk and is presently playing some of the best golf in the league. While last year saw the Quakers finish sixth, they finished well ahead of the Tigers at Navy in early April.