After suffering a week's delay due to the rain, the men's golf team commenced its spring season at Bentley College's Lou Flumere Invitational last Wednesday. Out of a field of 21 contenders, the Jeffs tied for ninth place with Boston University with a team total of 327 points, just 20 points shy of the winning score by Salem State University. Senior co-captain Andrew Bruns and Drew Russ '07 led the Amherst effort with twin scores of 81 points, good for 27th place in the individual competition. Scores from the rest of the squad also clustered in the low 80s. Sophomore Chris Valentine ended up with score of 82, first-year Adam Shniderman with a score of 83, and sophomore Glenn Wong emerged with 85 strokes on the day.

Valentine finished the tournament with mixed reactions. "We finally got lucky with the weather," he said. "By the back nine it was quite nice out. As for me, I played mediocre. In the front nine, I made a few poor swings that cost me strokes, and in the back nine I hit the ball great but was plagued by three-putting-I three-putted six times on the back nine. I couldn't seem to pull a good score together, but I liked how my swing felt going into the rest of the season."

Wong considered the tournament to be a fairly solid start for the team. "We were extremely lucky with the weather. It was a great day for golf. No one played great, but we were all steady. Not a bad finish for the first tournament of the spring."

Bruns echoed the sentiment. "It wasn't a great performance, but considering how little we've played this spring due to the weather, ninth place wasn't a bad showing," he said.

It seems that after the mild reprieve on Wednesday, the weather will continue to be a problematic factor in the Jeffs' season. The team was supposed to return to the links on Monday to play in Skidmore College's Palamountain Open, but rain once again kept the players off the green. On the bright side, however, the team refuses to allow the rain to dampen their spirits, and instead the Jeffs have gotten creative with their practices.

"We've been forced to bring our practices indoors, and we do a lot more conditioning and non-golf workouts than usual," said Bruns. "Several of us have gotten the chance to play basketball with the hockey guys a few days every week. It's been a bizarre year, but a lot of fun."

Indeed, the players have maintained a positive attitude toward the rest of the season. "It is obviously a frustrating season so far because of the weather, but we are hoping that the worst is behind us and we can hit the courses with a lot of passion for the remainder of the season," said Wong. "In the upcoming schedule, we have two tournaments at Williams [College], which is a course we are very familiar with, and the Little Three [Championship], which we are hosting this year. I think we have a shot at making some noise in the rest of the season."