Golfers Link Up in Opener

First-year golf coach Bob Donovan and his charges kicked off the season two days before the ECAC qualifying tournament on Monday in Portland, Maine, in the Toski Invitational tourney which serves as a showcase for New England talent.

Before the shotgun tee-off this afternoon at the sprawling Hickory Ridge Country Club, Donovan had said "UMass is pretty much king of the hill." The Minutemen proved their dominance all over again by pulling away from the field of 26 schools.

The Crimson linksters finished ninth with an aggregate five-man score of 328, a full 25 strokes behind the blistering pace set by UMass over its 6900-yard home course.

Donovan, who doubles as assistant athletic information director, viewed the tourney as a "chance to get one under our belt," saying, "I don't want our people going into the ECAC as their first event."

The linksmen weren't taking things lightly, though, with a chance to topple the Minutemen in their own backyard. It was basically the same Minutemen contingent that nudged the Crimson out of a berth in the finals of the NCAA tournament held at Albequerque last year.

"We're kind of behind the eight ball," Donovan said.

Putting Jitters

The linksters managed to card only two sub-80 rounds despite flawless play from tee to green because of general putting jitters on the vast, layered greens.

"If we had been chipping and putting we would have been in the thing," Donovan said, voicing the complaint of every golfer who has ever succumbed to a whiskey jerk.

Alex Vik, the team captain and reigning Norwegian Amateur champion, was low man for the Crimson with a 78, five strokes behind medalist Tom Day. Vik, who finished eighth in the European Amateur this summer at Graz, Austria, will jet to Andalusia next week for the World Amateur Championship held over the Penina golf course in Portugal. Golfers from 60 nations will participate.

Vik, who normally has a putting eye sharp enough to split teak in the forests of Borneo, three-putted the first hole and was unable to drop his putts the rest of the round.

His lapses around the green were all the more disheartening, since he split 15 greens in regulation. His drives, like mountain views in Switzerland, were breathtaking. He missed only two fairways all day.

Vik had to scramble on hole four after sailing his approach over the green. He foozled a four-foot birdie putt on five, and lipped out again on ten. He finally got his birdie on the 500-yard par five eleventh when, after booming his drive, he slapped a two iron in a bunker and followed with a semi-explosion shot that ended up stony.

Spense Fitzgibbons, who anchored down the second position most of last season, carded a 79, one stroke off Vik's pace. He gunned for the leaders early on, fashioning an even par 36 going out, but faded badly as he neared the clubhouse.

"He started like a ball of fire," Donovan said. He added that "at the end everyone began to lose it."

Fitzgibbons started his onslaught on the second and did not falter until he reached the thirteenth. On number two he smothered his drive, hooking it into the rough, but recovered beautifully by lacing a five iron that kicked up to the pin. He went on to hole out the side-hill 17-foot putt for his three.

Out of Contention

The bottleneck in play on the closing holes finally took its toll on Fitzgibbons' concentration, as he sandwiched a bogey between three doubles to balloon out of contention.

Dave Paxton, a junior letterman from Paducah, Kentucky, shot an 83 playing number two in a round similarly marred by erratic putting. Freshmen Jim Dales and Tom Edwards rounded out the Crimson's scoring with rounds of 88 and 89.

Donovan felt that Dales and Edwards, who both come from Michigan, were handicapped by their unfamiliarity with the texture of northeastern greens and the soft, clinging rough of Hickory Ridge.

'Psych-Out Course'

Donovan was generally pleased with the way his squad was striking the ball yesterday and contrasted it to its practice sessions at the Brookline Country Club.

"Brookline is a psych-out course," he explained. "I think that people tended to get discouraged and when that happens you tend to balloon. The rough is as high as a cornfield. If you miss the green a little bit it's like your ball is in an SOS pad.

After today's tourney the linksmen hope to enter the ECAC in midseason form. But besides serving as a tune-up, the Crimson's participation in the Toski Invitational for the first time is meant to pay homage to the Toski clan of Bob, Jack, Tom and Ben, who have been a driving force behind golf in New England. Bob Toski, who is the game's foremost teacher and whom Donovan calls "the pro's pro," won the Greater Hartford Open when he was a regular on the pro tour in the 1950s.

Golfing Family

Donovan, who graduated from the University of Tennessee, never played college golf but comes from a family that has also had long affiliations with New England golf. His father built a course in conjunction with renowned golf architect George Fazio.

Donovan, though, takes a realistic attitude towards his new responsibilities as golf mentor.

"I'm basically just a ball beater," he says. "If Alex started to hook the ball badly, I really wouldn't want to fool with his swing."