The newest additions to the Amherst men and women’s golf teams made their presence known in their tournament debuts this past weekend. In the Dartmouth Invitational, three of the women’s top five scorers were first-years, while Nate Belkin ’12 placed second overall for the men at the Duke Nelson Invitational.
Women
The women’s golf team started their season even stronger than last year, moving up five places to finish fifth out of 17 teams at the Dartmouth Invitational this weekend.
Many of the teams in attendance were Div. I, so the tournament was likely Amherst’s most competitive of the season. “This weekend surpassed our expectations… It’s not often you see a Division III school come out and place so well in fields like this one,” said captain Kinne Schwartz ’10. Besides beating several larger schools, the Jeffs placed well ahead of their only NESCAC competition at the invitational, Williams and Middlebury Colleges.
Shooting 156 and 159 respectively, Hayley Milbourn ’10 and Schwartz anchored the team with their top-twenty individual finishes. While their experience and knowledge of the course helped Schwartz and Milbourn to post competitive scores at the tournament, the rest of team’s top five was comprised of first-years. Nina Yoo, Elaine Lin, and Laura Monty made an immediate impact in their collegiate debuts.
“My goal this weekend was to stay relaxed and enjoy my first collegiate tournament,” said Yoo. “I had expected to play better on my first day but overall I feel satisfied with my performance.” As the young team continues to mold itself, the Jeffs can only expect improvement.
“This weekend was all about seeing how we could perform as a team with so many young players,” says Schwartz.
Yoo is optimistic about the women’s golf season. “I feel that as a team we were able to support one another and learn from each other. I hope that as a team we can finish our fall season strong.”
After witnessing the contributions of the incoming talent, Amherst can set their hopes high for this season. “Now that we have an idea of the scores we can post as a team, I think the upcoming tournaments are only more opportunities for us to bring strong play out on the course. If this tournament is any indication of how the season might go, then it could be the best we’ve seen in years,” says Schwartz.
Men
The men’s team witnessed an even more dramatic improvement than the women’s, placing sixth of 22 teams at last weekend’s Duke Nelson Invitational hosted by Middlebury. Just a year ago, the team was 23rd of 26 teams at the tournament.
Like the women, the men benefitted from mixture of experience and new talent. In fact, their lowest scorer was a first-year, Nate Belkin ’12, whose 147 tied him for second place at the tournament. Even Belkin was somewhat surprised by his performance. “I expected to play well, hopefully in the top 15, but a tied-for-second finish was a little better than I thought would happen.”
This was just Belkin’s second collegiate tournament, but he said he’s already learning from experience. “From both the first and second tournaments I have learned just to relax and keep your cool. There is no point to get too excited or hyped up about anything— just play your best and see what happens.”
According to captain Will Collins ’09, the team was simply looking to improve from last week’s tournament Trinity College. “What we focused on this week was putting together 4-5 solid scores each day and really learning all we could about the course due to the fact that NESCACs will be held there this year.”
Belkin calls qualifying for NESCACs a team goal, and Collins is confident in the Jeffs’ ability to do just that. He points out that Amherst beat two strong NESCAC teams, Williams and Hamilton, and finished behind Middlebury by a single stroke.
“For the rest of the season we hope to continue this level of play and work on our consistency. We have a lot of guys that can contribute and when we play well we can contend in any tournament,” says Collins.