Light Blue Golf Team Finishes Ninth at Towson

The men’s golf team went into this past weekend’s Towson Invitational in Westover, MD expecting to shoot well. The site of the tournament, Great Hope Golf Course, is known as being very fair and more forgiving than most of the courses Columbia plays.

The Light Blue did indeed shoot well at Towson. The five travelling members of the team played 10 combined rounds of golf, and nine of those 10 rounds resulted in scores below the 80 mark.

When all of the teams at the Towson Invitational submitted their score cards, however, it became clear that as well as Columbia played, the Lions would not finish near the top of the standings. The team scores of 300 and 305, for a total score of 605, gave Columbia a ninth place ranking out of 20.

“I think the fact that we shot low numbers at Towson shows that we are improving,” senior captain Nathan Kielbasa said. “But we also know that when you don’t play for four or five months, it takes a while to get where you want to be.”

“I thought we played decently. We could have played a little better, but it is still early on in the season,” sophomore Ali Haji said. “There were a few lapses of concentration. We haven’t yet reached our standard of excellence. But we played relatively well.”

Leading the Lions this weekend was Kielbasa, who has shown consistency this season and in his last three seasons at Columbia. Kielbasa shot a two-over par 74 in both rounds, good enough for a 22nd individual ranking at Great Hope.

Haji, a transfer from University of Southern California, and sophomore Nick Prost followed immediately behind, going 74-78 and 75-77 respectively. The team’s two first-years, Darren Bolton and Chris Oosterhuis, rounded out the team score. Bolton carded a 77-76 and Oosterhuis carded a 80-78.

A very competitive field seems to have been the reason the Lions’ low shooting did not guarantee them a better finish in the tournament. While the Columbia team averaged just four to five strokes over par on the weekend, the Lions were up against some strong opponents who made few mistakes in 36 holes of golf.

The tournament winner, Loyola College, finished with a combined team score of 578 by averaging just over an even-par 72 strokes per round. Second-place Navy and third-place Army trailed close behind, recording scores of 580 and 581. The next three teams in the rankings—Towson, Skidmore, and Colgate—all had scores below 600, meaning that they finished with stroke averages under 75.

“The field at Towson was much tougher than it was last week [at the American Invitational],” Haji said. “Out of 20 teams there were 15 very good teams there. The margin of error is so small that if you make a few mistakes, you can slip from something like fifth place to ninth place, which is what we did.”

“There were a lot of the top teams in our district [at the Towson Invitational],” Kielbasa added. “Those teams are not far-and-away better than the good Ivy League schools, but on the whole, they are more competitive.”

While Columbia did not beat out teams like Loyola, Navy, and Army, the Light Blue did fare better than the only other Ivy League team entered at the Towson Invitational. Cornell finished the tournament with a 16th place ranking, 17 strokes back from Columbia.

Next on the schedule for Columbia is the Princeton Invitational, which will take place the weekend of April 12-13. The week off from competitive play is a welcome opportunity to rest up and work on the parts of the game that have been giving members of this team some trouble so far this season.

“The first two tournaments, we sort of figured out what our weaknesses were,” Haji said, “so now we can spend the next two weeks focusing on them.”