M. Golf finishes eighth at Princeton Invitational

While Tiger Woods dominated the links at Augusta, the Penn men's golf team notched another average performance at the slightly less reputable Princeton Invitational.

Despite Penn junior Peyton Wallace's one-over-par 143 in the two-day event -- good for 11th place -- the remainder of his Penn teammates struggled mightily in Princeton, N.J., as the Quakers fell to eighth out of 20 teams in the competition.

Last season, the Quakers finished in fourth place.

Penn junior Chad Perman and senior Trey Best were the only other Quakers to finish in the top-50. The two ended the tournament tied for 36th with a final score of 150.

Overall, the Quakers were pleased with their performance over the weekend -- despite the drop from last season.

"You never know what your strength and weakness be on any given week," Penn senior captain Mike Russell said. "I don't want to say it comes down to luck, but we want those puts to go our way and those breaks to go our way."

Despite periodic showers throughout Saturday's second round, the Red and Blue were not hindered by any inclement weather situations.

"The conditions were pretty good for the most part," Perman said. "The fairways were not firm, but not that soft. The greens were pretty firm."

And Perman's scores actually improved on the dampened course -- he dropped his day-one total of 76 to 74 on his second time around the course.

Still despite Perman's improvement, Penn two-round total of 592 strokes put the Red and Blue 23 shots behind victor Penn State.

"It was a good improvement from the week before," Perman said. "It wasn't a bad showing considering it was a pretty strong field for our district."

The Quakers have struggled as of late to produce solid, consistent performances from the entire squad.

"I think we have a lot of good ball strikers and guys that hit it a pretty good distance," Perman said. "Everybody looks like they're doing real well in the short game. I think everybody looks like they're really starting to put it together."

At the Bradford Creek Intercollegiate on April 6-7, the Red and Blue finished in 24th in a field of 25.

Senior captain Russell missed the Greenville, N.C., tournament due to injury but was back in action this weekend against a slew of formidable foes from the Eastern region.

After shooting a 75 in the first round, Russell dropped in the rankings with a second-day score of 81.

"The first day I felt like I played really well,"Russell said, "but the second round I felt like I had a lot of mental lapses out there and that cost the team a lot of shots."

"It was not up to my standards."

Despite Russell's tough personal assessment, Perman was a bit more complimentary.

"Mike played well the first day," Perman said. "Even if you get one good score out of two -- one good score helps a lot."

With the help of their returned captain, the Red and Blue will focus on finding ways to boost their overall scores in the upcoming week at the most important event of the season the Ivy Championships.

The Quakers have finished runner-up for three straight years, losing by nine strokes each time.

"Because it's the Ivy champs it is certainly our biggest tournament of the year," Russell said. "It has made me especially bitter that we've finished second three years in a row.

"We've been working all year to shave those last nine shots so that we can move up a place."

Having a string of second-place finishes, the Quakers know what they must do to stay competitive to remain in the hunt for the Ivy's automatic berth to the NCAAs.

"We need to make sure we're not taking scores in the 80's," Perman. "Mid-high 70's is not going to hurt us that much. When you start taking scores in the 80's that pushes you back."

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