Alexis Wukich and the Penn women's golf team competed against 12 other teams in New Haven, Conn., this weekend. However, their opponents may have been the least of their worries.
Battling difficult conditions and the challenging Yale Golf Course, the Quakers finished in sixth place, matching their highest finish ever at the Yale Invitational.
The Yale Golf Course "is definitely the hardest course we play," Wukich said.
The course, ranked by Golf Magazine as the 52nd best course in the country in 1995, presented players with narrow fairways and sloping greens. To make matters worse, the players were also faced with windy, cold weather.
"The course is well contained by trees," junior Melissa Aylor said. "I didn't feel the wind as much from the fairway, so I had to just hit the normal shot and hope."
Reaching the green was only half of the battle for the competitors. Difficult pin positions and large putting surfaces forced the players to attempt long, breaking putts.
"I had an 80-foot putt that broke eight feet," Wukich said. "You just don't see that on most courses."
Despite the difficulties of the weather and course, the Quakers had a successful tournament against a strong field. Led by Aylor, who finished 14th, Penn defeated three Ivy League teams in one tournament for the first time in the program's five-year history.
The Quakers bested Dartmouth, Harvard and Brown en route to the sixth-place finish.
"Overall we played very well," Wukich said. "We can't be too hard on ourselves. We all saw improvement in our games."
Wukich finished with a score of 170, good for 36th overall. Wukich's first round was highlighted by a superb back nine. Following an eight over par front nine, she finished the final nine holes just two over par.
"I had never seen the course before" this weekend, Wukich said. "And I am very pleased with an 80."
Aylor was the top finisher for the Red and Blue for the second consecutive tournament, finishing with a 159 -- 19 over par. She shot a first-round 83, but bounced back in the second round, tallying a six-over-par 76.
"I was much more comfortable on the second day," Aylor said.
Aylor's play on the 18th hole exemplified her growing sense of comfort on the second day of the tournament. On day one, she triple bogeyed the par-five 18th, but on Sunday, she managed to par the hole.
Along with Aylor and Wukich, sophomores Jenna Skorupa and Kim Thompson and freshman Stephanie Stamas competed for the Quakers at Yale.
The freshman, playing in only her second collegiate event, finished in a tie for 54th overall.
Stamas "is still learning what it means to play collegiate golf," Wukich said. "It is a building process."
"The team is very proud" of her play thus far, Wukich added
Princeton finished in first place overall at the Yale Invitational with a score of 612. Yale finished second with a 617, and Rollins College -- the 2003 Division-II National Champions -- finished third.
