The Pomona-Pitzer golf team had really hit rock bottom. When the team went to the course to play, flying clubs and "cussing" were a common occurrence. The Sagehens had become nothing more than a rogue bunch of miscreants, joined loosely by something called a ‘team,’ a term which they only vaguely knew. They paid little or no attention to the advice passed around within the team such as "keep your head down," or "call me that again and you’re about to be the best head-cover my driver ever had."

Leslie "Duke" Gray Co-Captain Luc Schuster ’02 sinks a putt for birdie against a beautiful Southern California backdrop. Schuster led the team in their two vicories, shooting a personal season best 75 on Wednesday evening.

It was in this sorry state that the Hens played three of their seven SCIAC matches. This stint of matches began with a crushing loss by the grand total of one stroke to Redlands during a marathon of a round that took seven hours to finish. Though this modern day Odyssey at the golf course was far and away a Pomona College record in terms of duration, Redlands reported seeing nothing out of the ordinary that day. Despite weary legs and impending darkness, senior David Cho ’00 was able to nearly salvage the entire rest of the team with his brilliant round of 72. Cho, the last member of the beleaguered ‘team’ to finish, thought that his dominance would have been enough to secure the win, but was let down by the atrocious play of his fellow Hens.

Though the Hens felt that their SCIAC hopes might have been dismantled, the five players required to play a match still turned up for the next two matches against Whittier and Caltech. In what proved to be two fairly easy wins, the Hens nevertheless managed to take every opportunity presented to make mental errors, and throw away clubs and strokes.

It was at that point, after the match against Caltech that they realized that they had bottomed out. Like an alcoholic waking up the next morning in his wife’s underwear, the Hens were horrified by what they had become. It was at that point that they were shocked back into reality, and hoisted their muddy butts out of the gutter and back onto the wagon, golf bags, golf shoes and all.

With new fire in their bellies, and a redesigned team outlook, the Hens moved into their biggest week of the season. For their two big matches against the two best teams in SCIAC, Cal Lutheran and CMC, the equation was simple: lose equals you’re done. The Sagehens welcomed the golfers of Cal Lutheran to the pleasant country club of Redhill for what they hoped would be a good old fashioned drumming. And after the first two matches of the day had finished all even, it appeared as though that might be just what would happen. With all the other matches finished, and the final match of the day making its way up the eighteenth hole, R.G. Manalac ’02, needed to par the hole to bring home the victory. After hitting three very impressive shots, Manalac managed to dethrone the SCIAC champions from five of the past six years by two strokes with a little three-foot putt.

With the previously undefeated and always-hated Kingsmen out of the way, the Hens turned their attention to their archrivals from CMC. Knowing that no Pomona-Pitzer golf team had defeated the Stags for over seven seasons, a win looked daunting. The Hens pulled out to an early lead, but CMC, renowned for their patented late hole charges, began to pull one off under the leadership of Jon Fisher ‘02. Fisher, usually known for using the putter from the fringe and rough, decided to chip a ball instead, and used this newly adopted technique to send his ball right into the hole for a rare birdie on a tough course. However, on this day the Hens were ready for the charge, and they answered with steady play that kept them out of situations in which they had to chip or putt from off the greens. Manalac again made the little putt that clinched the victory, with almost as much drama, as the Hens beat the Stags by two.

"It’s been about as good a week as I’ve experienced at Pomona College in terms of golf," said co-captain David Cho ’00. "We really pulled together when we were down, and put up some good scores."

"They’re both solid teams and we’re going to have to keep beating them," continued co-captain Luc Schuster ’02, who led the Hens in both wins with a 77 and a 75 respectively. "Playing better than these teams has to become the rule not the exception. We definitely have the talent to play with these teams, but now I think that we have learned the mental toughness as well."

However, with Cal Lutheran tied with the Sagehens for first place in SCIAC, and CMC lurking in the alleys and dumpsters close behind, the Hens know that they can’t let up at all.

"The tournaments that count are still coming up," said Cho on the league championships that will determine the outcome of SCIAC. "The Caltech match was a real turning point for us though, and that should carry us through the rest of the season."