The Harvard men\u2019s golf team escaped the Cambridge chills this past weekend to participate in the Cutter Creek Intercollegiate held in Snow Hill, N.C. The Crimson placed fourth (+10, 874) in the annual tournament, hosted by East Carolina, amongst a tough field of 14 non-conference foes.<\/p>\n
Cutter Creek was Harvard\u2019s first competition of the spring season, with the Crimson last being in action with its second-place team finish (+29) at the Georgetown Intercollegiate last October.<\/p>\n
Although this was the first outing for men\u2019s golf this spring, the course in Snow Hill is familiar to the Harvard team, as last year the Crimson placed third (+3, 867) behind Campbell and East Carolina, who once again made appearances at the top of this year\u2019s leaderboards.<\/p>\n
Elon (-9, 855), a newcomer to the Cutter Creek Intercollegiate, tied for first with Campbell (-9, 855), while the host East Carolina (-7, 857) took home third. FDU (+14, 878), renowned for its 2023 NCAA March Madness upset as a 16th seed over first-seeded Purdue, closed out the top five, placing fifth.<\/p>\n
Sophomore Barry Zhang dominated for the Crimson in the third round, shooting 33 (-3) in the first nine to make up his round score of 70 (-2), on his way to a 13th-place finish (+1), the highest individual placement for Harvard this weekend.<\/p>\n
Zhang improved upon his consistent run of performances from the fall as he placed 10th (+8) in the aforementioned Georgetown Intercollegiate and tied for the second most pars (38) in the prior Hamptons Intercollegiate.<\/p>\n
The Crimson had three golfers finish in the top 20 of the individual rankings, including Zhang (13th, +1), sophomore captain William Ma (T16th, +3), and freshman Issac Ahn (T20, +4).<\/p>\n
With the exception of junior Jonathon Hartono (T51, +12), Harvard\u2019s roster contains all freshmen and sophomores, making for one of the younger squads in the Ivy League.<\/p>\n
Day one of play was rather consistent for the Crimson, as standouts like freshman Morgan Riley (+5 overall) hit 15 holes for par, finishing the round with a total score of -1. Sophomore Ieuan Jones (+8 overall) broke even in the first round, and despite two double bogies nearly costing him, strong play on the first nine \u2014 including three straight birdies \u2014 contributed to his even finish.<\/p>\n
Zhang had a rockier start, however, as he started the tournament with a +2 score after two birdies in the front nine, which he couldn\u2019t balance out with an inconsistent back half.<\/p>\n
Round two proved much more challenging as all golfers \u2014 except Ahn ( -1 in round two) \u2014 shot above par.<\/p>\n
Ahn had a largely consistent back nine with a balanced bogey on hole 15 and a birdie on hole 10 to maintain his net gain, leaving him with a score of +1 going into the decisive third round. Zhang (+1 in round two) shot for 73 with a costly bogey on hole eight to set up his +3 score going into round three, a score he eventually overcame.<\/p>\n
For Riley (+4 in round two) and Jones (+4 in round two), the second round resulted in scores of 76, with both having unique paths to that result.<\/p>\n
Jones had an excellent front nine, hitting for 35 (-1) with a birdie on hole nine. This fell apart on the back end, however, as he followed a birdie on hole 10 with a double bogey on hole 11. The double bogey was painfully followed by several more bogies for an ultimate score of 41 (+5) on the back end for a total score of +4. Contrarily, Riley had a litany of bogies scattered throughout the 18 holes, including a double bogey on hole four, which led to a score of 39 on the front and 37 on the back to reach his +4 score.<\/p>\n
With leaders Ma (+1 through 2), Ahn (+1 through 2), Zhang (+3 through 2), and Riley (+3 through 2) entering round three with all the glory left to play for, Zhang rose to the challenge.<\/p>\n
Zhang (-2 in round three) was the only member of the Crimson who hit below par, thanks to four birdies on the front nine outweighing a double bogey on hole 15 to secure his 13th-place finish in the tournament. Ma (+2 in round three) and Riley (+2 in round three) both finished with scores of 36 and 38, although Ma hit 38 on the back end and Riley hit 38 on the front end. They finished with totals of +3 and +5, respectively.<\/p>\n
Ahn had a very promising first nine, hitting two birdies and a bogey to finish at 35, but two painful double bogeys on holes 11 and 14 put a damper on his overall score, finishing +4 in 20th place. Like in round two, Jones (+4 in round three) ended up shooting for 40 to lead to his ultimate score of +8 on the weekend.<\/p>\n
Although an overall step back from the Crimson\u2019s second-place finish at Georgetown and third-place finish at Cutter Creek last year, a respectable fourth-place showing in this early spring tournament at a course unfamiliar to Harvard\u2019s several freshmen offers tremendous optimism for the rest of the spring season and the years to come.<\/p>\n
The Crimson will travel next to Princeton, N.J., for the annual Princeton Invitational on Saturday, April 11, and Sunday, April 12. This will be Harvard\u2019s first taste of Ivy League play this spring in preparation for the Ivy League Championships, which take place April 24-26 in Springfield, N.J.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Harvard men\u2019s golf team escaped the Cambridge chills this past weekend to participate in the Cutter Creek…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-572022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}