Army West Point Athletics
Patrick Beverly Diary
April 27, 2007 | General
Patrick Beverly Diary
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| Diary Entries Apr. 2, 2006 Oct. 17, 2006 Oct. 4, 2006 Sept. 26, 2006 Sept. 20, 2006 May 24, 2006 Patrick Beverly Bio |
April 27, 2007
Morning everyone! Amazing how I can be so chipper after our barracks had a fire drill at 4:30 this morning. Fantastic way to wake up.
Anyway, all my subtle whining and griping aside, I need to update you on our last two tournaments unfortunately, our last two of the season.
We first went to the New England Championships in Providence, Rhode Island. The tournament is hosted on a Donald Ross-designed course called Triggs Memorial. The course is very fun to play but is not always in the best of shape. This year, however, it was in very good shape so that made it all the more fun. Unfortunately, for us, Oden the god of thunder or some other celestial being saw fit to dump untold amounts of rain on us at this tournament. Our first day of play went off okay, if you don’t mind the -1274 degrees Fahrenheit weather we played in (okay, slight exaggeration, but you get the picture). We played decently well as a team, and after play finished were fourth out of 18 teams.
That night it monsooned and then continued on raining the next day -- your typical Nor’easter. Because of this, the second round was absolutely trashed out. So after an oh-so-brief playoff at 7:30 in the morning, we piled back into the van and headed back for West Point. I spent two hours of the trip slaving away at a civil problems set, and it is always entertaining trying to do calculations while hopping around like a jumping bean in the van.
After our rained-shortened Rhode Island tournament, we began to gear up for our conference championship held at our course. However, due to the numerous monsoons and the generally nasty spring the Northeast has enjoyed, our course was sopping wet. With rain predicted in the near future as well, we had no choice but to move the tournament to a drier site in order to make the competition as fair as possible. This meant the tournament was moving to Bucknell, the home course of our toughest rival.
Even though they had home course advantage, we had good memories of the course as it was the course where we won our last Patriot League tournament two years earlier. Our first two rounds had us seated pretty well. We shot dueling 293s and were in the lead by two shots over Bucknell and 6 (I think?) over Navy. Unfortunately for us, our team did not show up the last day, and we faded all the way to third behind the eventual champion, Bucknell, and Navy.
All in all, it was a pretty miserable way to finish the tournament. While it was fun to be in the thick of the tournament and be battling for the trophy, the way we brought it home was exceedingly disappointing and left a hollow feeling inside all of us as we left the course. You prep all year for the big tournament, and when the lights come on and the pressure heats up, you want to play your best. When you don’t it is frustrating and disappointing.
We had three all-conference participants in the tournament Matt Hanlon, Sam Walenz, and myself. So kudos for the individual accolades. As for the rest of the team, this is one of those tournaments that good teams have to go through to gain experience from. That way when you get in a similar type situation later, it is familiar and you know you can rise to the occasion. A bitter lesson, and one I’d rather do without, but necessary sometimes nonetheless.
Our rest of the season will be spent rounding out the academic year or making plans for either summer training or leave. After finals in late-May, our team will head off to various parts of the country for all kinds of activities, and will not be together again until August. When August does roll around, it will be time to put the wheels on again and see what our team can do. Until then, thanks for the support and have a good one. This is my last article as the golfing scribe. So, for the last time, I bid you adieu.
Go Army Golf!
Patrick
