The Binghamton golf team earned its second consecutive victory last weekend at the Yale MacDonald Cup. The win is also second victory in three years at the annual event. The Bearcats won the tournament by one stroke in 2004, lost by one stroke in 2005 and held on to the six stroke victory over runner-up University of Pennsylvania this past weekend.

The Bearcats had a rough first round as a team, but rebounded strongly in the second and third rounds to salvage the victory. Junior Zach Vinal led Binghamton with rounds of 75, 71 and 73 to finish in a tie for third place individually out of 95 golfers. Senior Jeff Wolniewicz played well after a disappointing first round of 80 with two rounds of 70 to finish in fifth place. Sophomore J.J. Shearer, senior Aaron Ungvarsky and Senior Tom Hackett finished 16th, 30th and 56th, respectively.

Considering the uncharacteristically difficult play of the golf course, the win was even sweeter for the Bearcats, proving that they can overcome even the most demanding situations. The players were forced to wear hand warmers for the first time this year as the blistering cold and treacherous winds impacted play.

“This was definitely our best showing of the year as far as handling tough conditions” said head coach Nick Lasky.

By far the toughest obstacle for the Bearcats was handling the greens. It took them an entire regulation round just to figure out how to play on them; they were extremely fast since the the wind had dried them out and thus the greens became very hard, almost like playing on wood.

“The pin placements were in the most precarious positions that you could ever imagine,” Lasky said. “With the combination of that and the demanding greens due to the weather, it made for a very tough combination.”

The putting stats for the Bearcats were higher than usual, but not nearly as high as the other teams in the field. Just hitting the fairways and greens in regulation proved a difficult task, but one that the Bearcats excelled at, hitting the most out of any team in the field en route to reaching a new team best for the season. Tournament director David Patterson said they purposely prepared the course under championship conditions to challenge the field.

Vinal had arguably the best tournament of his career as a Bearcat, hitting 44 out of 54 greens in regulation.

“I have never been a big fan of Yale, and it was by far the toughest course we have played on all year” said Vinal. “I just took what the course gave me, settling for 2-putts, because the pin placements were just absolutely ridiculous and almost unfair. I knew that since I had confidence I could hit most of the greens.”

Vinal had nine 3-putts during the tournament, which really attested to how well his ball striking had been throughout.

“His ball striking was absolutely amazing” said Lasky. “But the most impressive thing about him was how well he kept his focus throughout the entire tournament, because it certainly was not easy due to the treacherous weather.”

Perhaps what was most impressive was Wolniewicz’s ability to rebound strongly after his first round 80 to finish fifth. He had four 3-putts in his first round and zero in the next two rounds combined. Because Jeff has played the course so many times, and because he knew the many intricacies of the greens, he was able to place his fairway shots where he would have favorable angles to attack the green and have makable birdie putts.

“As usual, we really could not have done it without him,” Lasky said.