Inclement weather. It seems to be the story of a Big Green golfer's career. A few chilly or wet days on the course are to be expected and overcome when you go to school in Hanover, New Hampshire, a locale about as far removed from the Sunbelt as a collegiate golfer can get. But when a team travels over 600 miles to get to Croaker, Virginia, it might hope for a little more sun than it left behind at home.
The women's golf team hasn't been able to escape the rain this fall, even this weekend when they left New England to experience some Southern hospitality at the ECAC Championships hosted by the College of William and Mary.
They finished twelfth out of sixteen teams at the tournament, a much less successful result than they had hoped for. The teams were only able to get in one day of play at the Kiskiack Golf Club, as Sunday's round was canceled due to heavy rain.
"I was hoping for a sixth, seventh, or eighth place finish, to try and duplicate what we did last year," Sam Sommers '99 said.
"Unfortunately, we don't really have the capability to finish higher than sixth because of the southern teams."
Sixteen teams competed in the tournament which was won with ease by Penn State. Their score of 304 was 15 better than the 319 carded by the second place finishers, Yale and James Madison University.
The University of North Carolina-Wilmington was one stroke back with 320, and Longwood College took fifth place with 324.
Dartmouth's 360 was within striking range of William & Mary (350), Boston College (353), and Boston University (358) who finished ninth, tenth, and eleventh, respectively.
The Dartmouth women concurred that another day of play might very well have helped their finish.
"We didn't have a second day to redeem ourselves for our poor start," Sommers said. "We usually play better on the second day, and we think that we could have finished around tenth place."
"I really think we would have come back the final day to move up a few places, although the field was stronger than what we usually compete against," Meredith Johnson '98 said.
Johnson was the top finisher for the Big Green, tying for 40th place with an (44-43) 87. She was 15 over on the par 72, 5,853 yard course. Sommers was one stroke behind after shooting rounds of 43 and 45 for a score of 88.
Lauren Epstein '00 carded a 90, while Cara Mathews '99 and Courtney Dill '99 fired 95 each for the Big Green.
Laura Hammond of Penn State took medalist honors, shooting a 71. Two familiar faces to the Big Green, Natalie Wong of Yale and Katie Shields of Boston College, tied for second place, shooting 75 each.
Sommers said that the combination of rain and the lay of the holes made the course very tough to play, although it had just opened two weeks prior to the tournament.
"It is a new course, and they had us playing from the back tees because the ball had been rolling so far, but in the rain it wasn't really rolling at all because the course was soaked," she said
"Many times you were standing or practically hitting from puddles," Epstein said. "Most of the greens were elevated, which means that even without the colder temperatures, rain soaked air, and wet ground the course would have played fairly long."
"The biggest problem with the weather was that we weren't getting nearly as much distance as we expected, and it was almost like playing wet spring conditions," Mathews said. " The rain is just a huge hassle because it's so much extra work drying clubs and getting ready to take each shot, and I think it affected our mental games more than anything. Plus the Bermuda turf was just grabbing our clubs."
It became extremely hard to get on the greens in regulation, and when you did, all of the greens were basically different speeds because of the different amounts of water that had either collected or drained from them."
Sommers also pointed out that the design of the course was different than the ones the team is accustomed to.
"There were not any woods in the middle of the course," she said. "Instead there were bunkers, hills, and valleys."
Despite the fact that the ECAC's were a disappointing finish to their fall season, the golfers said they believe that they have good team dynamics and had fun playing together, and are optimistic about the spring season, which will kick-off with a training trip in March.
"We had a decent fall season as a team, and a few individuals really played well," Mathews said.. "Meredith Johnson had a phenomenal season.. The weather last weekend and the cancelled round on Sunday were a dissappointing end. Hopefully we have improved and become more experienced this fall, and we will be able to build on the fall season this spring."
