The Northwestern women's golf team once finished tied for first at the Big Ten tournament three times in four years. At least that's what John Mack - you remember him as a 10-time Heps champ and Roper Trophy winner in 2000 - texted yesterday.
TigerBlog takes his word for it.
He's still fascinated that a three-round, five-player tournament can end up 875-876, the way the league men's tournament did Sunday, when Princeton edged Columbia for the title.
TigerBlog didn't watch any of The Masters - and he can't remember if he ever heard who won, because it didn't seem to get much coverage - but his sense is that the golfers in a tournament like that know exactly where they stand at any given moment. In the Ivy League tournament, it's not as easy to keep track of where the leaderboard is as it evolves TB presumes.
In fact, he remembers the only time he ever covered the Mercer County high school boys' golf tournament, back in his early newspaper days, and one golfer holed out from the fairway on the 18th to win - only he had no idea until about an hour later that he'd won, because nobody had totaled scores yet.
Whether or not the golfers were tracking the live stats over the weekend, they knew they were in a close match. And they had to know every shot mattered.
There were a total of five eagles in the entire three rounds of the tournament. The last one came from Princeton's Jack Roberts, who finished at plus-14, tying him for 26th.
He also had the biggest shot of the tournament, with his eagle on the par-5 17th Sunday. If that's just a birdie, there's a playoff.
Speaking of Jack Roberts, he's now a two-time Ivy League champion this academic year. Roberts is also a member of the men's soccer team, and he was one of the Tigers who made a penalty kick in that epic 14-rounds of PKs in the NCAA tournament loss to Michigan.
That's a pretty amazing double. A pressure-filled PK and a pressure-filled eagle.
As for the rest of it, TigerBlog emailed Will Green, the men's golf coach, with three questions:
1) did you know stroke-by-stroke how close it was?
2) what was the shot that Roberts eagled on 17?
3) did you know you’d won as soon as the last group left the course or was there a delay while they counted the scores?
He'll let Will have the last word for today:
1) I knew as soon as Columbia posted their score that it was going to be really close, but also knew we had the par-5 17th to help us. I wasn’t sure where Yale stood, but had been getting hole-by-hole updates from parents, so I thought we were ahead. Then Yale’s Zinsner birdied 18 and Yale’s Nicholas birdied 17, so I couldn’t be sure any longer. It wasn’t until Sam Clayman (playing in the next to last group) got up-and-down on 18 that I knew we had Columbia beaten, and was kind of sure we had Yale beaten too. Had to get confirmation about where Nicholas stood (playing in the last group) before I could be sure. So, it literally came down to the last group.
2) Jack Roberts birdied 16, which is a really tough par-4, to get to 3-over. At that point, I think our five players were E, +2, +2, +3 and +3. Jack fanned his drive into the right trees (for the third day in a row), so I went down to help talk him through his shot. He had two choices: chip out sideways and try to hit a long iron close, or gamble and try to hit a shot through some small branches in front of him. He was going to have to go under one big limb right in front of him, and then over a tree about 20 yards away. He had 220 yards to the green. He asked me what I thought, and I said that the rest of the team was either right where he was or a little better, so we could take our chances and hope we get lucky, knowing the rest of the team was going to finish strong. Jack pulls 8-iron, thinking he could get the trajectory he wanted so that even if it hit some limbs, they would be small enough that the ball would advance up close to the green and he could just try to get up and down for birdie.
He made an abbreviated swing and follow through, and the ball somehow found its way under the first tree and through the second without touching a thing. From there, it was just a question of how close he could get it to the green. Again, he was 220 yards away. That’s usually a 3- or 4-iron for most people. He hit 8-iron, and somehow it made its way all the way to the green, about 20 feet away from the hole. One of the most incredible shots I’ve ever seen. And, to have the composure to then bury the putt for eagle? So clutch! When the putt fell, Jack let out a “let’s go!!!!” that I’m sure the rest of the team could here.
3) We knew when Sam made his par at 18 that we had beaten Columbia, and we knew that Max Ting’s score wasn’t going to matter. Just needed to know where James Nicholas stood. When we got confirmation that he was 1-over on the 18th tee, we knew we had it won, so we didn’t have to wait.
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