The golf team has been quietly plugging away for years, but this season, the Cardinals hope to make some noise. With seven returning letterwinners, the Cardinals hope to build upon a solid fall and gain momentum throughout the months of March and April. The Cardinal season will then come to a climax when Wesleyan hosts the Little Three Golf Championships, to be held at the Lyman Orchards golf course.
The Cardinals will be led by a duo of underclassmen, David Velardo ’08 and Eli Wilson ’09. Velardo was the top Cardinals’ player in the fall, shooting a round of 69 for only the fourth sub-70 round by a Wesleyan University golfer in the past 40 years. Velardo hopes to build upon his solid fall season.
“[I am] looking forward to playing in the bigger tournaments, like the Williams opener, [and] to have a chance to beat the best players in Northeast Division III golf,” he said.
Leadership for the golf team will be provided by captains Hal Tift ’06 and Jeffrey Sillin ’06. Tift believes that the addition of strong younger players such as Velardo and Wilson has caused the upperclassmen to want to become more serious about improving their golf games.
“It’s time us older guys start contributing a little more,” Tift said.
Tift and Sillin have responded well, improving their two-round scores at Ralph Myhre Golf Club, near Middlebury, from 170 and 179 to 166 and 171 respectively.
This spring, Tift and Sillin, along with the rest of the Cardinals, are hoping to continue to improve their games in order to help lower the team score at upcoming tournaments. The first of these competitions is an away match at Nichols College on Apr. 10th. Before then, the Cardinals will be taking a team trip down to Florida over spring break to escape the cold and get a head start on this season.
“Hopefully, that will be just the extra bit of work we need to have some better results,” Tift said.
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