Golfers Fall Short In Bid For ECAC Tournament Berth

Five Harvard golfers failed to gain a berth in the ECAC's fall-team championship in a 21-school qualifying meet Thursday at the Woonsocket, R.I. country club course.

The five-man squad posted a 343 score, finishing eleventh behind Bentley College's winning 323.

Alex Vik, the reigning Ivy League champion, Peter Smith, Dave Paxton, Scott McNealy, and Spence Fitzgibbons came up against some tough obstacles in the tournament. No one managed to break 80.

Vik said "a badly designed course" accounted for the high Crimson scores-- the best round of the tournament was only 79. At one point, Vik's club hit a rock on a fairway shot, sending his ball straight to the left rough.

McNealy said the squad had to play "a trick course with a lot of blind shots and sharp dog-legs." He also said that the Harvard golfers had not seen the course before Thursday.

In addition to fighting the course and the opposition, the linksmen also had to contend with the absence of a coach this year. Last year's coach, Tim Taylor, was dropped by the Athletic Department because of a recent NCAA rule limiting the number of full-time coaches at one school.