Men
The Amherst men’s golf team kicked off NESCAC play this weekend, finishing in sixth place at the Taconic Golf Club hosted by Williams. Senior captain Nicholas Koh placed seventh individually to lead the Jeffs. Knocking off nine strokes from his round one score of 79, Koh finished with a 70 on Sunday to record a two-day score of 149.

“The key to the weekend was our upperclassmen,” Harrison Marick ’17 said of Koh and Jarvis Sill ’15. “Those were two big performances that kept us in the hunt.”

Sill placed 10th out of 45, scoring 153 (73, 80) on the weekend to help pace the Jeffs. Marick finished 22nd overall with a 157 (80, 77), followed by fellow classmate Nicholas Kafker ’17, who finished 30th with a 163 (82, 81).

Rounding out the competition for the Jeffs, Erik Hansen ’14 and Brandon Brown ’15 finished 35th and 37th, respectively.
Amherst will return to Williams on Wednesday for the Little Three Championship.

“We want to win. We care more about this than any other tournament,” Kafker said. “We were talking to an alumni from the 80’s, and he said the thing he remembers most about his college golf career is that he lost to Williams his freshmen year and then won the three years after, so it’s something that sticks into your mind for eternity. There’s nothing quite so serious as Div. III golf.”

Women

Amherst women’s golf played host to 15 teams this weekend, competing in the Jack Leaman Invitational. The Jeffs placed fourth overall, earning a 650 two-day score, and head coach Michelle Morgan praised the weekend as a “great effort by the entire team.”
“We played ourselves into a great position on day one to win the tournament and came close, only to losing by six strokes. That is good competitive golf and shows we are one of the elite programs in the Northeast,” Morgan continued. “The Amherst ‘B’ team also proved their competitiveness and the program’s depth by finishing in the middle of the entire field of 18 teams.”

Jamie Gracie ’17 finished at the top for the Jeffs with a fourth-place finish among 87 competitors, turning in a score of 74 in round one and 84 in round two.
“We played really well on the first day,” Gracie said. “I think it was the best team score this year and I had my best round on relation to par that I’ve ever had.”
Senior captain Sooji Choi placed second amongst the Jeffs and tied for 10th overall in the tournament with a two-day total of 161, while co-captain Kristin Lee ’14 came in at 18th, shooting an 82 in both rounds. Rounding out the top scorers for Amherst was Devyn Gardner ’16, who scored an 83 in the first round of play followed by an 84 in round two for 25th overall.

The Jeffs will compete at the Williams Spring Invitational this weekend for their final regular season tournament before the NCAA Championship.