Coming off a strong showing at a pair of back-to-back tournaments last weekend, the men’s golf team is looking more confident than it has looked all season. That is a good thing, too, considering that the Light Blue is scheduled to play its most important tournament of the spring, the Ivy League Championships, in just a few days.
In what must have been the most grueling rounds of competitive golf the Lions have played all year, the team finished 11th in a field of 20 at the Princeton Invitational on Saturday and then tied for third at the George Washington Invitational at Rehoboth Beach on Monday.
“I think we have all improved steadily since the beginning of the season,” senior co-captain Nathan Kielbasa said. “We have been playing well, and we got a few really good scores this past weekend.”
Kielbasa, who carded a one-under par 71 in the first round and 76 in the second, paced Columbia at the Princeton Invitational, which was held at the Springvale Golf Course on the school’s campus. In his remarkable first round, Kielbasa birdied two holes on the front nine to get to two under par. After double-bogeying Hole No. 14, he fought back to one under par with a birdie on No. 15. Kielbasa’s combined score of 147 gave him an 18th place individual ranking in the event.
First-year Darren Bolton also got up and down at Princeton with scores of 70 and 79 in the first and second rounds, respectively. Bolton finished the tournament with a ranking of 31. Sophomore Ali Haji followed not far behind with a 78-75, good enough for a 58th place ranking, and his classmate Nic Prost went 81-73 for 66th place over all. First-year Chris Oosterhuis rounded out the five-man roster with an 80-92.
“That was a lot of golf. Everybody was dying on the van ride back on Monday night,” Oosterhuis said. “The whole weekend I didn’t really play that solid, but the one through four guys are playing really solid for us.”
While Columbia’s team score of 602 was 33 strokes over winner Penn State’s score of 569, the Lions did not trail far behind its two main Ivy rivals in the tournament, Princeton and Penn. Princeton, which shared third place with St. John’s and James Madison, recorded a team score of 587, only 15 strokes better than Columbia. And Penn, the other main contender for an Ivy championship title, recorded a 592 to edge out the Lions by 10.
After the conclusion of the Princeton Invitational on Saturday afternoon, the team traveled to the Delaware shore to play a practice round of the GW Invitational on Sunday and then two official rounds of golf on Monday.
In that next tournament, Columbia was led by Kielbasa and Prost, who both tied for third in the individual standings after 36 holes. Kielbasa went 74-71 and Prost went 73-72 en route to one over par combined scores of 145.
Haji and Bolton also shared a ranking with individual scores of 163, putting them at 51st. Haji shot 81 in the first round and 82 in the second. Bolton shot 75 in the first time through and 88 on his next trip. Oosterhuis was the fifth man at Rehoboth, going 85-79 for 59th place overall. The Light Blue finished the GW Invitational with a score of 607 and tied for third behind tournament winner Rutgers and runner-up Iona.
The results from the past weekend are certainly pleasing for this young Columbia team composed of only one senior, two sophomores, and two first-years. The Lions will have to improve if they want to win the program’s first Ivy title since 1999.
“I think we are all as confident as we have been all year,” Kielbasa said. “We have a week of practice ahead of us, but I think after practicing, we will be ready [for the Ivy Championships].”
The Ivy championships begin on Saturday and will be played this year, as they have been several times in the past, at Metedeconk National in Jackson, N.J.
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