Men's & Women's Golf

The Columbia men's and women's golf teams both improved this year under new head coach Richard Mueller, and for the men's team, the progress may not be over. The women ended their season with a fifth-place finish at the rain-shortened Ivy Championships, but the men are still awaiting a possible at-large bid to the NCAA East Regional tournament.

The women, playing in only their third season as a varsity program, received a major boost from their freshmen this year. Carly Nathanson, Sara Ovadia, Christy Yun, and Monique Kim provided depth to a team that had played with the minimum four players for most of the 2005 spring season. The added depth paid big dividends in the fall, as the women took third place or better in all four fall tournaments, including a victory at the Dartmouth Invitational in September.

The women cooled off a bit in the spring, but still managed top 10 finishes in all four spring tournaments leading up to the Ivy Championships. The league championship match was marred by rain, and the team was declared the fifth-place finisher after just 27 holes.

The men also had a strong fall season, winning the Rutgers Invitational in September and taking fourth at the Penn Big 5 Invitational in October. Sophomore Chris Condello, who led the Lions in scoring in four of their five fall tournaments, took second place individually at the Rutgers Invitational.

The men notched a second tournament victory in April at the Princeton Invitational, holding off the host Tigers by two strokes for first place. Condello grabbed the Lions' first individual victory of the year in the rain-shortened 36-hole tournament.

The Lions nearly beat Princeton again at the Ivy League Championships, but fell one shot short and finished second. Condello, freshman Chris Arkin, and junior Matt Wong all finished in the individual top 10 at the event. Condello and Arkin also received All-Ivy honors. Although they failed to clinch the automatic bid to the regional tournament they would have received by winning the Ivy Championship, the men are still in the running for an at-large bid to the NCAA East Regional. At-large bids will be announced soon for the tournament, held May 18-20 in Orlando, Fla.