As anyone who has golfed before knows, when you’re in the zone, there is nothing that can hold you back. Binghamton University was in the zone this weekend, winning the Cornell Invitational played at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Course. In fact, it wasn’t even close, as the Bearcats won by 13 strokes ahead of the 14-team field for their first win of the season.
‘I was very pleased,’ Binghamton coach Bernie Herceg said of his team’s performance. ‘We had a good finishing round at the Adams Cup the week before and we really kept the momentum going into this tournament. I’m very happy about the results.’
Binghamton was in complete control throughout the entire tournament, finishing at the head of the pack after the first, second and third rounds. The overall team score of 868 marks the lowest team score posted by BU for a 54-hole event since 2006, where they finished with a score of 851 in the St. John’s McLaughlin Tournament.
Once again, senior co-captain Jake Katz proved why he consistently sets the bar for the team, finishing first overall out of the 81-person field. This is Katz’s first overall victory since the spring season of his sophomore year, when he won the Cornell Tri-Match. Katz never had a round over par, finishing with scores of 70-72-69 for an overall score of 5-under-par over the three rounds of play.
‘Jake is really taking his game to a different level,’ Herceg said of his star player. ‘He’s been looking beyond college to see where he could go with golf. Right now he’s really focused on improving his game so that he could put up low scores week in and week out.’
The Bearcats further showed their dominance by taking the first three overall spots in individual play. Katz finished first, junior Trevor Fiedler placed second and senior co-captain Andrew Marler tied for third. Fiedler, who only competed in the individual portion of the event and had the best finish of his career, notched the lowest single-round total of any player over the course of the tourney with a 4-under-par 68 in the second round. He finished 3-under-par for the tournament, one stroke behind Katz.
‘Trevor played awesome,’ Herceg said. ‘He had a real chance at the end of winning the tournament outright. The rest of the team played well too, and all had a chance of finishing under par as they finished up each round.’
Meanwhile, Marler’s even par score for the tournament was good for third overall. He is coming off a solid performance last week at the Adams Cup, shooting a career-low 3-under-par in the final round. It was tied for the best single round performance in the tournament. Overall, Herceg feels his team is in a good position moving forward.
‘We have a little experience playing on the next couple of courses for the tournaments coming up,’ Herceg said. ‘The team is really starting to come together and believe in themselves. We have the attitude that we expect to go into the rest of the events and win them.’
The next tournament for the Bearcats is the Yale MacDonald Cup, set to begin on Oct. 2, hosted by Yale University.