W. Golf | Penn not 'sharp' enough at Va. tournament

"Rusty" is the best way to describe the Penn women's golf team's performance this past weekend, according to coach Mark Anderson.

"That's expected for the first tournament in the spring, especially coming from the northeast," Anderson said. "It's good to have a tournament like this to see what we need to work on, even though we didn't play great."

Penn finished the First Market Bank Intercollegiate tournament 17th overall out of 22 teams. The Quakers shot a combined score of 668 (337, 331), which is 92 strokes above par.

Freshman and No. 3 player Tiffany Cheung finished first for Penn (80, 80), and tied for 25th place overall with three other players. The second-best finisher for the Red and Blue was No. 2 Meredith Kotowski. The junior tied for 47th place (81, 83) with ten other golfers.

Junior captain Lisette Vitter tied for 88th place (87, 84) with three other players, fellow junior Catherine Elliott tied for 96th place (89, 84) with two others and freshman Elizabeth Pettie finished 110th (89, 93) at the event.

"We had too many three-putts, too many double bogies," Anderson said. "[We need to change] things up off the tee a little bit and [be] a little sharper with our approach shots and our short game."

Vitter echoed her coach's observations.

"I don't think we played to our potential, but it gives us a lot of things to work on," she said. "We know what we need to practice. It'll be better here on out."

Originally Anderson thought his team would be playing three rounds on the Marsh Hawk Course, but the women actually only played two rounds on the Blue Heron course in Williamsburg, Va.

Conditions were unfavorable for Penn and the other 21 teams at the event. Even first-place team Alabama finished 33 over par (609). Second-place squad Richmond shot 51 above par (627), and Charleston Southern, which finished third, shot 54 above par (630).

"It was a little bit wet, so we didn't get much roll," Anderson said. "The greens were a little bit on the bumpy side, but it's the same for everybody. We need to adjust and be able to adapt to that, whatever the situations are. So I can't say that they hurt us."

Vitter also pointed out that the long six and a half hour rounds didn't help her squad. Typically, rounds only last about five hours.

"It was definitely a strain," Vitter said. "We just took it stroke by stroke, and tried to play in the moment."

However, the team's focus waned towards the end of each day.

"[It's especially hard] if you aren't playing well," Vitter added. "It feels like it's taking even longer, and you're grinding over every shot but somehow it's just not working out the way you want it to."

Despite the tough weekend, Penn did manage to shoot 22 strokes better than Ivy opponent Dartmouth. The Big Green finished 21st with a final score of 690, 114 above par.

The only other Ivy team at the tournament was Columbia, which outshot Penn and placed 10th with a final score of 644, 68 above par.

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