Men's Golf: Soggy conditions doom tourney hopes

The Princeton Invitational featured 14 teams — including Ivy League rivals Penn, Columbia and Cornell — teeing up on the par-71, 6,390-yard Springdale Golf Club course. While the tournament was supposed to feature two rounds on Saturday and one on Sunday, rainy conditions forced the teams to cut Saturday play to one round.

“We play well [at Springdale] in all weather conditions because we play there all the time,” sophomore Eric Salazar said. “Springdale is a short, three-line fairway, but it has tricky greens. We also had six of the Ivy League teams there, so there was definitely a good level of competition.”

The inclement weather conditions may have made playing more difficult, but the Tigers were bolstered not only by the confidence of being at home but also by memories of last year’s sweeping victory.

Terrible weather appears to be a theme for the Princeton Invitational — last year, a big storm on Friday night left the course rough and difficult to play on — but, then again, so has winning, as witnessed by the Tigers’ defeat of all the participating Ancient Eight rivals during last spring’s tournament.

Despite last year’s victory, Princeton’s performance last weekend was less than inspiring. In their first tournament of the season, the Tigers failed to prove themselves a powerhouse team, struggling with the rainy weather conditions and ultimately coming up short with a last place finish out of 16 teams. After last weekend’s competition, Princeton was looking to bounce back with a much-needed victory.

Though it rained much of Saturday, Princeton remained unfazed despite the sub-par conditions and ended the first round in third with a combined team score of 301. After the first day of competition, the Tigers remained three strokes behind Columbia and seven behind tournament leader Rutgers. Leading the team during the first round of play was Salazar, who shot even-par for the day. His score put him in a tie for second place, one shot behind Harvard’s Greg Shuman, who led the way with a 1-under 70.

“I focused on taking it one shot at a time,” Salazar said. “I really just tried to play well and make aggressive swings at conservative targets. That was my main thought.”

Unfortunately for fans of the Orange and Black, things quickly went downhill for the Tigers on Sunday. Struggling against the wind, four of the five Tigers witnessed an increase in their scores on Sunday. Even Salazar — who led Princeton—fell to an eighth-place tie at 8-over-par by the end of the day. Following Salazar were junior Gregory Stamas at +14, senior Andrew Maliniak and freshman Patrick Wasserman at +15 and junior Jake Skinner at +20. The Tigers finished behind Yale, Penn and Columbia, though they managed to stay ahead of Harvard and Cornell.

“We played really poorly during the second round,” Salazar said. “I would have to say what probably kept us from playing well today was being able to control the ball in the wind because most of the guys on the team — myself included — normally hit the ball really high, so trying to adjust to wind is difficult.”

With the Ivy League Championship just around the corner, Princeton is going to have to significantly ramp up its level of play if it hopes to bring home a title.

“We just need to try to not get caught up in beating the other teams,” Salazar said. “We need to stay focused on our own game and play one shot at a time.”