For fall break the golf team made the trek to Philadelphia, Penn. to compete in the annual Big Five Invitational, hosted by Penn at the Philadelphia Cricket Club. The Red put up a strong showing on day one, posting a team total 298, good for fourth overall in the 17-team field. However the Red faltered on day two, collectively shooting 13 strokes higher and falling to 8th overall to finish the tournament. Senior Robert Cronheim led the Red individually, finishing 5th overall with a 143.

The course at the Philadelphia Cricket Club proved to be one of the nicest, yet most challenging golf courses that the Red has played this season.

“It was an amazing golf course,” said junior Dan Bosse. “It was in excellent condition. It was very challenging though; the greens were pretty quick and very hard to read. It wasn’t overly long but there were definitely some long holes.”

The Red’s drop-off from day one to day two was not attributed to anything in particular, but could be blamed on the team trying to force the issue.

Going long: The Red tried to force their way through on the second day of the Big Five invitational only to fall back.

“Basically we were trying to make too much happen,” said Cronehim. “As a team we were trying to do too much. On the first day, nobody played their absolute best golf but we still were near the top. It showed us that if everybody plays to their normal capabilities we’re going to contend.”

Next weekend the Red close out the fall portion of their season in a new way, with an Ivy League Match Play tournament in Mattapoisett, Mass. The tournament was put in place by the Ivy League coaches as both a fun way to close out the fall, and as a future way to help decide the champion of the Ivy League. Currently the winner of the Ivy League Tournament in April is crowned the Ivy League champion and moves on to the NCAA’s, but the coaches agreed that more should go into deciding who is truly the best team.

The Red will take its fourth different lineup of the season to the tournament this weekend: Cronheim, Bosse, junior Matt Jaye, and sophomores Drew Baity and John Dean will make up the squad.

“[Coach Baughan] told me that this weekend is basically a chance for everybody in the Ivy League to have fun and to close out the season in a good way,” Cronheim said. “Everybody obviously still wants to play well, and it’s definitely a good opportunity to see how we stack up against the rest of the Ivy League. But really we want to just have fun and end the season on a good note.”

Although it is hard to carry momentum from the fall season to the spring season with such a long layoff in between, the Red feel that it is important to play well this weekend to prove mainly to themselves that if they play to the best of their ability, they can compete with anybody.

“The first day at Penn we showed that we can play with the best of the best,” Bosse said. “As soon as you put yourselves in positions where you can win tournaments, you get your confidence going and then the sky’s the limit.”