Sports Editor Ana Baggiano recently talked to men’s golf team player Greg Benckart. The golf team has been placing in the middle of the pack in their past two tournaments.† Upheld by a group of four strong juniors who have been starting since their first years, the team hopes to start utilizing their maturity by playing to their true potential.
AB: The men’s golf team finished fourth of nine at the Denison Fall Classic and ninth of 16 at the Guy Kuhn Invitational.† Is this where you expected to place?
GB: Our performance so far hasn’t been anything exciting or eye-opening by any means . . . We have not even performed close to our potential yet.
AB: Who in the conference are your biggest competitors? Do you have one rival team you would love to beat?
GB: Allegheny. I would say that Wittenberg and Ohio Wesleyan are far and away the top two teams in the conference. It would be a pretty big upset come this spring [to beat Allegheny] when we have conference events.
AB: This Saturday you will be playing at the Kenyon Fall Invitational.† Where are you expecting the team to finish in the tournament?
GB: I’ll say that I anticipate our team to be pretty successful this weekend mainly because half the team has played the course already.† The majority of the team is familiar with Mount Vernon Country Club.
AB: What are the team’s biggest strengths?† What are the biggest weaknesses?
GB: Our biggest strength is that we have four juniors that have pretty good tournament experience because we have played the majority of the tournaments since our freshman year. I would say that the inconsistent scoring at the fourth and fifth spots of our line up has been the setback of the team.
AB: What are your personal goals for the match?
GB: Consistently shooting lower scores and being a reliable contributor to our overall team score. Wrapping up our fall season, we have two tours left.† Hopefully we can finish on a positive note that will carry over in the spring.
AB: Any predictions on who will lead the team on Saturday?
GB: Blake Sword ’12 has been really turning it up lately.† He’s really been helping our team out this fall.† I wouldn’t be surprised if Tim Faerber ’12 and John Angelo ’13 also go pretty low.