Wu Wows at Toski Invite For M. Golf

Junior Chris Wu took home individual honors from a tournament for the first time in his career yesterday, propelling the Harvard men’s golf team to a third-place finish with a team score of 317 at the Toski Invitational, held at the Hickory Ridge Country Club in Amherst.

Wu drained a four-foot putt through pouring rain to clinch the individual medal on the second playoff hole.

The putt came just after Central Connecticut’s Mike Moreland had missed a five-foot par putt, giving Wu a chance to end the playoff.

Just before these heroics, Wu faced a do-or-die situation on the first playoff hole. He sunk a 12-foot birdie putt to force the match to continue.

“Chris has been our strongest guy,” junior Cliff Ryan said. “He’s really coming along this year. He’s had a strong fall.”

Wu fired an even-par 72 on the day.

“72 is a spectacular score,” captain Andrew Klein said. “It was a difficult set of conditions.”

Ryan was quick to point out the similarities between Wu this year and Klein last year.

Both players had solid freshman and sophomore seasons before breakouts in their junior years.

The 12-team tournament, which had been rescheduled after being rained out on Sept. 28 and 29, was shortened to only one day, leaving the Crimson with no margin for error.

“[Playing a one-day tournament] is a double-edged sword,” Klein said. “It’s exciting because if you get your stuff together, you can really make it happen, like Chris did today. But only one day means no shot at redemption.”

In addition to the brevity of the tournament and the rainy conditions, Harvard was hindered by the absence of many of its key players. Senior Neal Hegge, sophomore D.J. Hynes and freshman Jin Park did not participate yesterday, despite only missing two tournaments between the three of them thus far this season.

Klein cited midterms, freshman weekend holdovers, interviews and sickness as the reasons that so many Crimson golfers were unavailable for the tournament.

“A lot of guys missed the tournament, so we needed people to step in and play,” Ryan said.

In lieu of these team members, freshman Michael Hoagland (82), Ryan (84) and freshman Thomas Hegge (94) all participated in a tournament for the first time this year. Ryan has been nursing a wrist injury.

“Lots of guys were rusty coming in,” Klein said. “There were a lot of bad numbers [on the scoreboard], which was more a function of not playing than the conditions.”

Klein rounded out the scoring for Harvard with a 79, good for 17th place individually.

Although Wu’s accomplishments were praiseworthy, Harvard was not completely satisfied with the way it played as a team.

“[The tournament] left a bitter taste in some of our mouths, [especially] with it being the last tournament of the fall season,” Klein said.

The Crimson now goes into its long winter lay-off before returning to action in April.