The Columbia men’s golf team found itself trailing Penn by three strokes going into the last round of the Ivy League Championships. In the end, four strokes were all it took for the Lions to defeat the Quakers in a late comeback effort on the last hole and to capture the 2009 Ivy title. Columbia left the Atlantic City Country Club on Sunday with a team score of 858—one stroke ahead of Penn. Dartmouth and Yale took the third and fourth spots ahead of Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, and Brown.
Day three of the competition featured a battle between Columbia and Penn from the start. After Dartmouth—just one stroke off pace entering the final day—fell behind, the Lions and Quakers emerged as the uncontested front-runners.
The lead switched back and forth throughout the day until the Lions faced a three-stroke deficit entering the final round. But in the end, with the score tied at +10 after four of five team members had finished their rounds, the title came down to the final hole. It was a showdown of freshmen as Columbia’s Brendan Doyle faced off against Penn’s Scotty Williams to play the ninth hole.
Refusing to allow his nerves to get the better of him, Doyle coolly made the par-four while Williams ended with a bogey.
Doyle and Austin Quinten had great performances for the Light Blue, finishing the tournament tied for eighth place. Quinten also had the most impressive Lion round, ending two-under-par at 68 on Sunday. Clark Granum led the Lions with a total of 213 after three days. Granum ended the tournament tied for fifth place and earned all-Ivy League recognition for the second year in a row.
The women’s team did not fare as well this weekend, finishing the championships in fourth place after carding 305 on Sunday for its best round of competition. Harvard placed first with a total team score of 904 while Yale and Princeton followed with scores of 906 and 909, respectively. Columbia finished with 945—again, a single stroke ahead of Penn. Brown and Dartmouth finished with 985 and 1029, respectively.
Senior Sara Ovadia, who was the 2007 Ivy League Individual Champion, closed out her collegiate career with a team-best round of 74. Her two-over-par finish was the lowest for the Light Blue all weekend and advanced her for a 14th-place tie in the tournament. Freshman Robin Lee had the women’s best individual performance, ending the tournament in a tie for 12th.
With the men’s win, the Light Blue advances to the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship for the second consecutive year. The championships begin on May 14.
