Golfers approaching their last green

By Tom Albano

The big weekend has arrived for the golf team as the Broncs travel to Buena Vista, Fla. for the MAAC Championship. They go into the event off of a disappointing performance in the Princeton Invitational on April 13 and 14.

Sophomore Luke Liddell was excited to play at Princeton, but overall was disappointed with the team’s performance.

“The course is always a phenomenal field at Princeton, and it’s just such an honor to play in such a great tournament,” Liddell said. “But we couldn’t make the putts we needed to get it together and had a tough, long grind out there.”

Liddell finished tied for 62nd place after shooting a 74 and an 82 during the first two rounds on April 13 and shooting an 81 on April 14. His total score was 237.

Other notable performances for the Broncs came from senior Evan McGrain and junior James Buttermark, both tying for 64th with scores of 238. McGrain finished shooting 74, 82 and 82 over the three rounds. Buttermark shot 81, 81 and 76; his 76-shot performance was his lowest score of the semester. At the competition’s end, the team finished with an overall score of 960, finishing last out of the 14 teams.

Things turned around a bit for the Broncs at the Peacock Invitational on April 23 in Neshanic Station, N.J. The Broncs finished with a team score of 309, placing seventh out of 12 teams. McGrain tied for sixth with a score of 73 — one shot short of the lead. Buttermark tied for 20th with a score of 77 and Liddell tied for 30th with a score of 79.

These recent finishes for the Broncs complete a season filled with erratic performances.

“Overall, I would say it has been an up-and-down year,” Buttermark said. “We started off great with a good first tournament and since then it’s been up and down. What we learned is that we can never give up during the round and that we have to grind out every shot until the round is complete.”

Despite the struggles, the Broncs are very excited to go down to Florida to compete in the much-anticipated MAAC Championship.

“This is our best team since I’ve been here,” Liddell said. “We’ve beaten many of the teams in our conference in previous tournaments. We had a promising start to our season, placing third at La Salle, but since then we have been a bit inconsistent with getting everyone together for a good round.”

The team has been working on what it has to for the MAAC Championship, but the team feels that if it competes to its potential, it can do more than just get a good performance.

“We just have to try and stay focused throughout the entire round,” Liddell said. “The main thing we have been working on is our short game and I feel that if our short games are on point then we can compete for the win.”