Fourth-Place Finish Ends Ivy Title Quest

Harvard men’s golf finished fourth at the Ivy League Championships yesterday. Columbia emerged with the win after toppling Yale, the leader on days one and two, who settled for second place. Harvard finished 16 shots off the mark behind third-place Penn.

The Galloway Golf Club played host to the Ancient Eight.

“The greens were really fast and pretty undulating, and the rough was longer than anything we’ve played this year,” sophomore Danny Mayer said. “It was right on the bay, so you get the winds from the ocean so you typically have high winds there and they were even higher [Sunday]. It’s a nice view but not good for golf.”

On day one, Harvard shot 300, five shots off the pace set by rival Yale and good enough for second place. Round two’s 312 pushed the Crimson back to fourth after Columbia scorched the field with a 293. Yale held on to first with a 299. Ultimately, Yale came apart on day three, shooting 315 to Columbia’s 304 and cementing the Bulldog’s second place finish.

“We got off to a good start,” Mayer said. “We were in second after the first round and kind of faltered in the second. Maybe we were a little tired, but it wasn’t the way we wanted to finish up the first day. The winds picked up today [for round three], which makes scoring low a lot harder, so that can account for the higher scores.”

Sophomore Greg Shuman led the Harvard contingent with a top-ten individual finish, followed closely by fellow sophomore Danny Mayer, who tied for 11th. Shuman shot 230 (72-78-79) and Mayer turned in 71-79-80. Shuman and Mayer were tied for eighth going into Sunday. Penn’s Michael Blodgett finished first individually with 218 (75-67-76).

Tying for 20th, sophomore Peter Singh shot 235 (80-76-79). Junior captain Michael Shore posted a 237 (78-81-78) and junior John Christensen put in a 242 (79-79-84).

“Ivies is always fun to play,” Mayer said. “There’s a banquet, which is nice. It’s a really great tournament and very well run.”

Shuman excelled in round one, peppering his scorecard with birdies—five of them—and only running into trouble on the sixth. After a solid round two, a mixed bag third round—eagling the 11th but picking up two double bogeys—Shuman solidified his hold on tenth place. Shuman was one of only five players to eagle in the tournament and the only in round three.

Mayer’s rounds displayed more consistency. Shooting even par on day one—three birdies and three bogies—Mayer set the bar for the team. A rough start to round two, bogeying five of the first six holes, then double bogeying the 8th was balanced by an uneventful back nine, where Mayer shot par on eight of the final nine holes. Sunday, a problematic day for the entire field, saw Mayer have a consistent front nine before hitting trouble on 11 and 12—a triple bogey and a double bogey.

“I typically have a lot of pars,” Mayer said. “I started off the tournament well. I played my first 27 holes one over, and then the last 27 16 over. It was partly conditions and partly that I just had a lot of loose shots and mistakes compounded on other mistakes, and it just all adds up.”

Statistically the most challenging, the par-four 13th hole posed problems for golfers across the field. Shuman birdied it in round one, but fell to a double bogey, round two, and finally triple bogey in round three. Over the entire tournament, the 13th was bogeyed or worse 83 times against only 37 times at par or better.

“I actually birdied it, as did Peter Singh, but it’s a really tough hole,” Mayer said. “I think it was the longest par four and it played straight into the wind, which made it even longer. You had out of bounds to the right and trees to the left with a green surrounded by bunkers.”

Next weekend, the team will travel to Rhode Island for the final tournament of the year.

—Staff writer Elizabeth A. Joyce can be reached at eajoyce@fas.harvard.edu.