Women
The women will be welcoming back senior Hayley Milbourn for what they hope will be a fourth brilliant season on the links. The Baltimore, Maryland native was named to the NGCA All-America first-team in her first two years at Amherst, before being selected for the second-team at the end of last season. She finished the year with four individual victories in helping the program win a record six tournaments. And in her 20th year at the helm of the women’s golf program she helped create, Head Coach Michelle Morgan was also acknowledged by the NCGA, which awarded her the East Region Coach of the Year Award at the end of last season.
Also returning from last year’s team are juniors Elaine Lin, Nina Yoo and Laura Monty, who regularly joined Milbourn atop the leader board. A younger Monty, the sophomore Liz, is no pushover either, as she led the Jeffs to their second-consecutive Massachusetts State Championship last spring. “Hopefully the experience of winning six tournaments last year should contribute to confidence, which is so key to success in this difficult game,” said Morgan. “The depth of the team makes it very interesting week to week for qualifying to determine which players will play each week. It makes it very exciting to know that any player has a chance to play in the top five at some point in the season.” The team’s first tournament is the Dartmouth Invitational, which is slated to start on Sept. 18th.
Men
The men’s team’s efforts did not translate into wins quite as often as the women’s team, but that has not left them lacking an all-too-familiar NESCAC swagger. It was, after all, consistency that dogged the Jeffs last year, as they had difficulty maintaining their results week in and week out.
Senior co-captain Trip Wray, who last year led the team’s scoring through most tournaments, believes the team has “the talent and experience this year to contend for the NESCAC title.” The core of the team has remained intact, with Head Coach of 16 years John Mills describing junior Nate Belkin as “on the verge of being a dominant player in the NESCAC,” while adding that his brother Mike Belkin ’11 “will be a significant contributor” should he follow up his work from last season. Sophomores Alex Butensky and Ben Johnston will also be expected to contribute regularly to a team that showed promising prowess last year with a 13th-place finish among a crowded field at the Middlebury Invitational and a ninth-place finish at UMass Dartmouth. The season starts on Sept. 11th at the Trinity Fall Invitational.