After a month of traveling up and down the east coast for tournaments, the Penn men's golf team gets to stay home this weekend for the Big 5 Championships at the Philadelphia Cricket Club.
"This is our home course and so we should be able to take advantage of that," Penn senior co-captain Chad Perman said. He added that the Quakers "have a pretty good chance of winning.
"This is the first time [this year] we've had a home tournament," he said.
Perman, who led the Quakers at the ECAC Championships with a first-round 71, emphasized the significance of this tournament, the team's last in the Fall 2002 season.
"It's pretty high up there [ in comparison to the other three]," he said.
The Quakers will square off against a set of familiar foes -- Temple, St. Joseph's, Villanova, La Salle, Drexel and non-Big 5 rivals Princeton and Lehigh.
"It should be a good, balanced field," Perman said.
Perman did single out the Tigers, however, as "the best team in the field."
The Tigers are led by freshman Jason Gerken and senior captain Nat Hoopes, who won the Ivy League Championship when he was a freshman.
Princeton finished above Penn at both tournaments in which both schools participated, the James Madison Invitational and the McLaughlin, which was hosted by St. John's University.
Princeton has "been finishing in the top three or four of every tournament in the district," said Perman.
The course, one of Philadelphia's best, is located near the Morris Arboretum in the northwest suburb of Flourtown. It is "one of the toughest courses we'll play all year," the Penn captain said.
Perman expects yesterday's rain and the forecast for a cold, windy weekend to have a significant effect on play.
"The greens will be softer," Perman said. "[The rain] will make it easier to keep the ball on the greens," he said.
While some Quakers may grumble about temperatures in the upper 50's while attending Penn sporting events this weekend, Perman will have no such problems.
"I think [the weather] might play to our advantage because it will make the course tougher, and it being our home course our guys know all the danger areas," he said.
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