Crimson Linksters Fall to Tigers, Elis in Tri-Meet

How can you explain the game of golf? At the Ivy League Tournament last Saturday, the Crimson linksters scored an impressive 13-stroke triumph over second-place Princeton. Yale was even further back than that. Yesterday at the Brookline Country Club, however, Harvard birdies turned into bogeys, and the Crimson placed third in a tri-meet, falling 374-401 to the Tigers. Yale finished second with a team total of 392.

This was the same Harvard team which only Tuesday had captured the Greater Boston championships. In the rain at Brookline, though, Harvard could not keep up with a Princeton squad which placed all seven of their men in the sub-80 bracket.

Of the many amazing Tiger performances, the most incredible was turned in by number seven man Buff Wohlbarth, who shot a 74, the second best score in the entire field.

It seems improbable that a golfer can be overconfident (after all, a five-foot putt is always a five-foot putt), but this was the case with the Crimson. While Alex Vik and Tom Yellin fired identical 77's, none of the other five men could best 80, as Harvard's previously unbeaten mark slid by the cup.

For Vik, a Norwegian citizen who lives in Spain and whose mother is from Uruguay, yesterday's match was a rude lesson in shuttle diplomacy. In his most recent outings, Vik had won the Ivy title and finished first in the GBC's.

As all great diplomats know, however, success is not a permanent state. One double and one quadruple bogey on the front nine spelled disaster, and not even a sub-par 35 on the back nine could turn the tables yesterday.

Yellin shot a consistent 37-40-77, and the other co-captain, Steve McConnell, added an 80, but 80's were meaningless when compared to Princeton's final tabulation of 73-74-74-76-77.

Seniors Peter Zurkow and Bob Thompson rounded out the Crimson scoring with rounds of 84 and 83, respectively.

The fact that five scores, as compared to four in last weekend's Ivy Tournament, counted in the tri-meet goes a long way is explaining the Crimson's defeat. Harvard's depth is somewhat of a question mark, and as a result, coach Tim Taylor plans to take a long look at many players before deciding on the team which will enter the upcoming Easterns.

The Missing Link

Before that championship, the linksters will be involved in two tri-meets. On Monday, they'll play against Brown and Boston College, and two days later, the opposition will consist of Williams and Holy Cross.

"This match doesn't discourage my optimism," McConnell said yesterday in discussing his team's defeat, "but it encourages my realism." Or, in other words, on some days, the putts just don't fall.