By Alex Caprara
Special to the Denisonian
The Big Red men’s golf team ventured to Sandusky, Ohio this weekend to take part in the seven-team Battle at the Brook held at Plum Brook Country Club.
The men registered a total score of 623 strokes, which was good enough to give them third place honors in the seven-team tournament. Conference foe Kenyon College finished in first with a combined score of 595, besting the field by 22 strokes and making them the only team to break 600 strokes. Mount Saint Joseph University of Cincinnati finished with a score of 617 to capture second.
Wet and windy conditions plagued the course this weekend, but that did not stop Denisonian Jonathan Taylor ’17 from shooting a stellar five-over-par 147 over the two-day match. His score landed him tied for second with Mount St. Joseph’s Kyle Miller, a mere two strokes behind champion Warren Whithaus of Rose-Hulman.
“There were tough conditions, really windy, so I was happy with the scores,” said Taylor, regarding his second place finish. “The team played okay. We could have been better in certain areas, but the scores were pretty high due to the conditions.”
Taylor was not the only member of the Big Red’s squad to contribute to the team’s third place finish. Knox Montgomery ’19 finished with a 16-over-par score of 158, which landed him in a five-man tie for 16th place. Rich Van Voorhis ’16 registered a 19-over-par 161 to place him tied for 22nd place, while Guille Henegar ’17 and Daniel Hirsh ’19 rounded out scoring for Denison, both shooting a 20-over-par score of 162, putting them in a three-man tie for 28th place in the 42 man field.
The quintet fought hard on day one of the tournament. They finished fifth on the hotly contested first day of competition. A mere three strokes separated the second through sixth teams, which put them in striking distance.
The men stayed resilient on day two, when three of the five Denison men improved upon their day one scores. Their collective efforts were enough to lift them into third place past opponents Rose-Hulman of Indiana and Thomas More College out of Kentucky.
Taylor was thrilled with the way the team was able to cap off their match and battle back to claim third place overall. “This week and last week we took away ‘going forward’ as our motto,” Taylor said. “The first rounds of this weekend and last weekend we were in fifth or sixth place and we ended up in second or third, so that’s kind of what we are going for.”
The team is hungry for more success, and they will look to find it at their next match on Sept. 26-27 at the Dan Quayle Collegiate Golf Classic in Danville, Indiana.