Golf: 'An Individual Sport'

Golf isn't exactly as brutal as football, as gruelling as cross coontry or as dependent on teamwork as soccer. The practices aren't quite as demanding as they are for crew, or hockey for example.

"I mean, we don't run stadiums or anything like that," senior co-captain Steve McConnell comments, "We don't have any set training rules. Golf is an individual sport, requiring individual effort."

But just because the golfers don't bash their heads against dummies every day or run to Watertown and back doesn't mean that golf is not a sport. Just because they practice at a country club doesn't mean that it's all a picnic for McConnell and company.

I'd guess that on the average we spend more time each day practicing than most other sports. McConnell says, in defense of golf. "I spend about seven hours a day between hitting balls and traveling to and from Brookline [Country Club, the ritzy course where the team practices.]"

Each member of the squad has to keep working on his game, perfecting his putts or approach shots and straightening his drives, to keep it in top form for the weekly qualifying rounds coach Tim Taylor arranges to give everyone a chance at playing in the meets.

"There's no security," McConnell states, "not even for the top guys. You can be playing at three one week and then drop to number ten the next."

So it is no surprise that most members of this year's team will be working extra hard to earn one of the seven spots on the squad for matches, as Harvard has one of the most balanced squads in a while. That is, there are no super stars like Art Burke and Quinn Smith who departed with graduation last year.

McConnell and co-captain Tom Yellin, who are as good as any in the East, look to be the low scorers for the Crimson this season, with returning lettermen Chip Rickets and Bob Thompson, both juniors, providing some help. Thompston, however, has not had much practice so far, as soccer took up most of his time during the fall.

The squad should also receive some aid from freshman Alexander Vik, a Norwegian who has had the honor of playing for his country in a tournament over the winter. With the demise of the junior varsity, it is important that freshmen such as Vik stay interested in the sport. For this reason the varsity team might be expanding some this season, from eight to ten members.

Only eight duffers, however, will go on the annual spring trip to Orlando, Fla. In addition to McConnell, Yellin, Thompson, Rickets and Vik, senior Jon Ellis, junior Scott McNealy and sophomore Jon Bartlett will get a chance to tee off on the Sunshine State links. Senior Peter Zurkow would also be joining the team, but his role in the Hasty Pudding Show takes him to Bermuda during spring break, where hopefully he will get in a few rounds before returning.

The elite eight are determined by a 72-hole playoff in the fall. Thompson did not make the cut due to soccer commitments, but is replacing Zurkow on the trip which is sponsored partially through alumni donations and partly raised by the team itself through mixers.

The thought of the golfers spending a week in Florida may conjure up images of getting into shape by lifting up beer cans and pulling the tabs, but the team takes the trip quite seriously.

"You have to spend a lot of time practicing," McConnell says, "and the courses around here aren't open in March. You can't go out to some muddy field and hit balls, that won't help."

"With baseball, say, Loyal Park can go around and tell a guy he's not fielding well because he's holding his glove too high. But with golf it's not that easy to tell why you aren't playing well. If you had Jack Nicklaus, maybe he could tell you, but otherwise you just have to go out and drive balls for an hour or putt for an hour..."

The 'vacation' in Florida, then, will be time well spent for the eight golfers. The squad has not as yet arranged any competition with the Southern schools, who take their golf very seriously, but the practice alone will be worth this year's budget price.

Second year coach Taylor will have a chance to pick out some challenging courses for his squad. Although Taylor's not a pro (many southern schools do hire pros at great expense) the team is very high on his coaching abilities.

"He's an excellent coach, with a Capital 'C'," McConnell says of Taylor. "He knows that from hockey. He's a good team man and knows how to merge people into a common interest. And most of all, he likes to win. This is an excellent combination for a college coach, just short of being a pro."

Taylor guided Harvard to a 12-3 season last year, but his squad did not fare well at the important Eastern championships, a prestigious event from which the top two teams are chosen for the NCAA's Harvard could manage only a ninth putting a damper on an otherwise successful season.

This year the team may get shots at earning an NCAA had as there exists the possibility that the law league champion will be a district representative to the nationals. A new Ivy Tournament has been scheduled for April 1920 in New Haven while the Easterns follow a couple of weeks later in the same town. May 3-4. The measure of Harvard's success this season will rest largely on these two events.

The duel meet season, which opens on April 6 against Dartmouth at the ConcordCountry Club (where Harvard will play all but one of its home meets), tends to have a bit less significance attached to it now, as collegiate golf is beginning to place more emphasis on the tournaments and tri-meets in an effort to cut the costs.

But one again, thanks to the depth and balance that McConnell ascribes to the team, Harvard should have a successful duel meet season.

"I've always said," McConnell always says, "that for northern collegiate golf, if you have five guys under 80 (matches are scored by totaling the lowest five of seven players on a team) You'll will 95 per cent of your matches."

So while Al Shealy strokes Harvard's heavyweight Eight down the Charles and Milt Holt pitches baseballs on Soldiers Field McConnell, Yellin and the Crimson linksmen will be out stroking putts and chipping the ball up to the green, as they work on lowering their scores. And while this may not sound as strenuous as other sports it is every but as important to the team.

And after the practicing and competition is over? well them we'll do our share of celebrating." McConnell summarizes "just as every other team doe