By Henry Geraghty
This past Friday, Oct. 9, the Lawrence University Golf team travelled three and a half hours to Oak Brook, Ill., to compete in their final tournament for this fall season. All eight teams were forced to perform in windy, unpleasant weather, but they still managed to put on an impressive performance.
Though Lawrence was put at an early disadvantage witoout junior Rudi Pino, the Vikings fought hard to be a competitive force. Ultimately, they were outmatched, placing sixth with a final score of 345. Carthage College came in first with a final score of 301.
“I would say this match wasn’t our greatest because it was our last one of the fall season, and we didn’t have very good weather or a lot of time to practice this past week or two, which really affects your performance,” said sophomore Nathan Ley. “When you can’t practice, it makes playing a lot more difficult.”
Ley noted that many Lawrence players were struggling with their short shots, taking three or more putts to make a hole, which put them far behind the Carthage and Elmhurst teams.
Nonetheless, stand-out player and Lawrence senior Anton Olsson managed to tie for seventh place with a round of 77, just five over par. Ley (87), sophomore Nigel Schuster (88), freshman Clarke Ryan (93) and sophomore Ryan Eardley (95) rounded out the score for Lawrence, putting them 14 behind fifth-placed Elmhurst.
“We did really well at the beginning of this season, starting off with two wins, which was really exciting,” Schuster commented. “This last game was just a very average way to end out the season, unfortunately.”
This is the first season in almost ten years that Lawrence was able to win consecutive, back-to-back tournaments. With this in mind, players are very motivated to put in their best effort for competitions down the line.
“We’ve got a really good team this season,” said Schuster. “We’ve got really good chances of winning our conference championship. We’ve just got a put in a little bit more effort this spring season and we can do it.”