The skies finally cleared long enough this week for the Sagehen golfers to scrape the mold off each other and head back to the course. The golf team however, had little time to warm up their rusty swings. The first day without rain saw the Hens journey down to a waterlogged San Diego to play not one, but two rounds in one hot, tired day. Though the tournament had no effect on the Sagehens’ league standing, the team still wanted to play well and assert themselves as one of the teams to beat in SCIAC.

In what would be a marathon day of eleven straight hours of golf for the tireless Sagehen team, Coach Lorn Foster’s kids were forced to dip into the wells of strength that they had built up over an offseason of tireless training.

The team began it’s morning round well. Many of the Sagehen golfers were hovering around par throughout the opening nine. However, as the day wore on, and the dew evaporated, so evaporated the Hens’ good play.

Despite having some of the best putters in SCIAC, the ancient Viking god Krom, of putting and floral arrangements, was not smiling fondly on the Sagehens as they wielded their flat sticks with little to no efficacy. On greens that were showing the effects of the recent rains, Krom threw his burning roses of fire at the rolling dimpled spheres, veering putt after agonizing putt away from its intended mark.

"It was just a pretty poor display," said Co-captain David Cho ’00 of the team’s putting. "It was just a mediocre day all around." That mediocrity began to become apparent as word of the morning scores filtered around the course. The Sagehen team, rendered dizzy and upset by their putts which stubbornly refused to do anything but spin out of the hole, could not post a score better than an 80, carded by young Duke Gray ’03.

Despite the disappointment of the morning round, the team was still hopeful for the second round, knowing that they were a few holed putts away from scoring well. However as the morning fizzled into afternoon, and the putts continued to roll in every direction but the one that was intended, it became apparent that the good play which had eluded the Hens in the morning was not going to come in the afternoon. There were some small improvements, though, with Luc Schuster ’02 coming in with a 79 in the afternoon even after he was given an unfavorable ruling on one hole which led to him losing two strokes.

Schuster’s 79 was paired with his 83 from the morning round, giving him 162 for the two round total, while Gray shot an 81 in the afternoon, leaving him at 161. Led by these scores, which were not what the Hens had envisioned while standing on the first tee, the team could do no better than finish in the middle of the SCIAC pack.

"If nothing else it was a good learning experience," said Tim McEvoy ’02. "We’re really not match tested at all, but we’ve proved to ourselves that we’re definitely in the top tier of SCIAC." Not all sentiments seemed to be this rosy. "I was really dissatisfied with not only our performance," said coach Lorn Foster, " but with that of the other SCIAC teams as well. People’s games need to get sharper."

Whether that self-proclaimed dullness was a result of nerves or just plain rust is unclear, but this tournament proved to the Hens that they need to play their best in order to beat the good teams in SCIAC. "If you’re a player you have to step up," continued Foster. "There’s always pressure on a golf course. That pressure never goes away."

However, on a day when none of the other SCIAC teams really managed to get anything going, the Hens were just barely edged out by hated Claremont-Mudd, and fell to apparent SCIAC powerhouse Cal Lutheran by a margin which could have been eclipsed had a few more crucial putts fallen. The Hens will get their chance to make those putts on Monday when Cal Lutheran comes to the Hens’ home course for what should be a close match.