Men's Golf Finishes Fifth at Princeton Invitational

Only two strokes off the lead entering the final round on Sunday morning, the Harvard men’s golf team had a chance to break Yale’s two-year winning streak at the Princeton Invitational.

The Bulldogs had won in 2011 by six strokes, while in 2010 they defeated the Crimson in a tiebreaker.

But Harvard could not overcome a strong final round by Yale, who shot a 283, the low round of the tournament, and finished in fifth place overall with an 17-over 869 at the par-71 Springdale Golf Club in Princeton, N.J, this past weekend.

“The first day we played pretty well,” sophomore Theo Lederhausen said. “[But Sunday] didn’t go as well as we would have liked. It was a good start to the season, and we’ll go from there and get better.”

Ahead of Harvard were the winning Bulldogs at +6, followed by Georgetown, Columbia, and Princeton.

Dartmouth’s Peter Williamson was the individual leader for the tournament, shooting -5 in the three-day tournament.

The tournament was fairly close all weekend, with the top seven teams within seven strokes after Saturday’s opening two rounds and the top three teams within two strokes at the end of Sunday’s round three.

Senior Tony Grillo was the leading scorer for the Crimson, tying for sixth place overall at even par.

After the first day, Harvard found itself in fourth place with overall 577 strokes, two off the score of 575 for the leading Hoyas and Yale.

Grillo had an impressive showing, finishing his two rounds on the day at -4.

He was the overall leader on the day, and his first-round 67 was the low on the first day of the tournament.

Although just playing individually, sophomore Kevin McCarthy was the second best scorer for the Crimson on day one. He finished tied for 11th at +2 with a hole in one.

Though his total did not count for Harvard’s overall score, McCarthy was still tested and proved his ability all weekend.

“It would have been very nice to have Kevin in the lineup this week,” Grillo said. “But having said that, even as an individual, he had a lot of pressure on him this week having to post a score each round in a competitive environment, so what we can take from that is to know that he can do it and use that for the tournaments to come.”

Following Grillo through two rounds was senior Mark Pollak (+4), Lederhausen (+5), and sophomore Michael Lai (+6) tying them for 18th, 20th, and 28th, respectively.

Rounding out the day for the Crimson was freshman Akash Mirchandani at +9, good for 37th place.

Sunday was not as strong for Harvard, as the Crimson fell to fifth place and 11 strokes off the lead with a score of 292.

“We were right there,” Lederhausen said. “Tony Grillo played really well, and we had some other really good rounds, [but Sunday] we weren’t as sharp.”

Lai had the best round on Sunday for Harvard, shooting an even-par 71 to finish tied for 21st on the weekend.

Mirchandani had his best round of the weekend with a 72 to come back and finish tied for 32nd.

Lederhausen finished 32nd as well, ending his weekend with a 76 in the final round.

Pollak and McCarthy both shot a 74 on Sunday, with McCarthy finishing tied for 14th overall and Pollak tied for 24th. Grillo ended his weekend with a score of 75.

Despite the fifth-place finish, the Crimson believes that more consistent play will bring stronger results, especially given the striking distance the team found itself after two rounds of golf.

“I think that biggest part that we can take out of [the tournament], is that we didn’t play great golf that [second] day, and as a team we definitely could have done better,” Grillo said. “And to see that we were close let us know that we have a lot to improve. But having said that, we were right there with the other teams.”

—Staff writer David Mazza can be reached at damazza@college.harvard.edu.