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131001 University of Pennsylvania - Men's & Women's Golf Practice at Phila. Crickett Credit: Hunter Martin , Hunter Martin

Penn golf is just three good rounds away from a championship. Unfortunately, so is the rest of the Ivy League.

Both the Quakers’ men’s and women’s teams will head to Bethlehem, Pa., on Friday to take part in the three-day Ivy Golf Championships. The team that does best over the course of 54 holes will take home the Ancient Eight title and qualify for NCAA Regionals in three weeks.

There’s nothing more to it. In Ivy golf, teams don’t have records and there are no seeds. A squad can’t be doomed by a slow start to the season nor feel too comfortable when having a bad tournament because it has done well throughout the season.

So the peculiar nature of the sport’s title quest becomes a double-edged sword: each group of players gets to start with a clean slate, but there is absolutely no margin for error. Mistakes made before the tournament can be forgiven, but nobody will be that kind once the teams tee off on Friday.

Heading into the weekend, neither Penn team is a favorite. Golf is not one of the sports in which the Quakers have traditionally dominated the league. Last year the women’s squad finished fifth, while the men placed eighth out of eight teams.

However, the Red and Blue are heading into the event confident that they have a fighting chance.

“I think that the way the team is playing right now — as they’ve gotten closer to the tournament — suggests that they’re ready to have a good run at the title,” men’s coach Bob Heintz said. “It’s a deeper team than we had last year going into Ivies. We’re very optimistic that we can at least get to the final day with a chance to win, which is sort of the goal in golf. Give yourself a chance, and everything can happen.”

Golf is an individual sport, but the championships follow a team-based format. Each school sends five golfers to the event, with the four best scores in each round accumulated while the worst score is thrown away.

And like Heintz, women’s coach Mark Anderson believes in his team, but stresses that consistency is necessary across the board in order for Penn to bring home a title.

“I honestly feel that we have five players that have the potential to finish All-Ivy [in the field’s top 10],” he said. “One thing we’ve been lacking is depth in our scores. [But] they all have the capability to post a score that’s going to put us near the top. So if we’re all playing well, absolutely, we can be right there.”

“We’re going to need all five of the guys to pitch in at some point,” Heintz echoed. “There are other teams in this league that are pretty deep.”

The women will send senior Amanda Chin and sophomores Erin Lo, Isabella Rahm and Sophia Chen to the event, with freshman Michelle Yom rounding out the group. The men will field seniors Austin Powell and Ben Cooley, junior Patrick O’Leary, sophomore Dane Walton and freshman Amay Poria.

With one Ivy championship in program history, the women’s team is looking to replicate the success of the 2010 season. The men’s squad has three Ivy titles of its own, with the most recent one coming in 2012.

Although both coaches hope to gain a bit of an edge from having a shorter commute to the tournament than their opponents, Heintz is concerned about another, less certain factor.

“As the weather has gone, the team has gone,” he said. “Our two good-weather events — the one in Florida and the one in North Carolina — we played very nicely. But when the weather was extremely challenging in New York and Pennsylvania, we struggled. So we’re hoping for good weather this week.”

It isn’t always sunny in Bethlehem. But every team will start in the same conditions, just as they will all start in an eight-way tie for first.

All that matters is how each team plays this weekend. Anything can happen, for better or worse.

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