Unlike Ernie Els at the Masters, none of the men of the Amherst golf team seven-putted at the Hampton Inn Invitational in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts this past Friday and Saturday. A strong showing on the second day of the men’s opening spring tournament, which included an 18-stroke improvement on the previous day, secured the purple and white an eighth-place finish among the 18 teams competing. The Amherst men finished with a combined scored of 656 at the conclusion of the invitational.

Sophomore Dan Langa led the purple and white on day one, finishing with a score of 82. Liam Fine ’17 concluded the day one stroke behind Langa, while James Line ’16 shot an 85 and Jack Burlison ’19 carded an opening day score of 87. Langa proceeded to give a good performance the following day with a score of 79 resulting in a combined 161 for the two-day invitational. With this score, Langa closed out the tournament tied for 11th overall. Line, Burlison and Fine all carded scores of 80 in the second round, concluding the tournament with combined scores of 165, 167 and 163 respectively. Fine’s score 163 secured him a spot at tied for 19th at the end of the invitational.

“It was nice to get back playing competitively, but the conditions were tough this week. The wind and the cold were tough to play through,” Langa said. “We really didn’t have a complete practice the week before so we were coming into the tournament not as prepared as we would’ve liked to be, but these next few weeks are really just warm-ups for our ultimate goals which are to do well at Little Three’s and NESCACs. We have a weekend off coming up now which we are looking forward to so we can really prep for these.”

The Amherst men’s golf team will continue its season on Wednesday, April 20, when they host the Little Three championship against Wesleyan and Williams.