In its third event of the year, the Fordham golf team came in dead last, 12th out of 12, in the Dartmouth Invitational at Hanover Country Club. The silver lining that the Rams can take away is that they shot their two best cumulative rounds of the year, matching 299’s, despite coming in last place. Drexel took home the victory with an 11-under par 557, followed by Rhode Island and Bucknell tied in second and five shots back.
The Rams had a promising first round from freshmen Nicholas Manning and Chan Park, who shot 72 and 71 respectively on the par-71 track, but the rest of the team failed to support the stars. A 77, 82 and 79 from the remaining three players led the Rams into last place headed into the second round, four shots behind Brown. On Sunday, Manning posted the Rams’ first under-par score of the season, a one-under 70, but once again the Rams did not show the depth to compete. Park posted a 76, followed by a 75 from freshman Peter O’Rourke, 78 from junior Anthony Wells and an 81 by fellow junior Mithran Denbow.
Manning led the Rams to their lowest scores of the season, as the Rams had not broken 300 this season. Obviously, it is disappointing to come in last place and see such a young and promising player in Park struggle on Sunday, but the Rams have to keep their heads held high. They are not going to compete with teams like Drexel, Bucknell and Rhode Island even if they are playing at the top of their game, so improving is the main goal of this season, which they did. If the team only gets better as time moves on, head coach Paul Dillion should be happy with the squad no matter the results at the end of the season.
Next on the schedule for Fordham is the MacDonald Invitational, hosted by Yale at The Course at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. The Rams placed 14th out of 14 teams in the MacDonald last year, so they will look to improve on that finish and the season-low score of 299 at a tough Yale course.
After Yale, the Rams are taking a two-week hiatus, returning to action on Oct. 18 at Lehigh. This shines even more light on Yale, as they will have two weeks of practice to fine tune anything and everything that needs improvement before their match against Lehigh.
At the halfway point of the fall season, the Rams have a lot of positives to look at, but certainly many areas where they need to improve. The fall season can be seen as more of a tune-up for the spring, as that is when the A-10’s are. The end of the fall season will lead into a winter of improvement for the Rams. At this point of the season, they have proven that they have the ability to improve, and if they continue to do so, they can surprise some people at the A-10 championships this spring. For now, they just look to keep getting better, and Yale is the next test.
