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 (Photo provided courtesy of Princeton's Office of Athletic Communications) caption:
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Ambitious Princeton Men's Golf Team Shoots to Overachieve at NCAAs
By Bill Alden
Will Green will tell you that the players on his Princeton University men's golf team are chronic overachievers. "They are absolutely remarkable young men," said Green, who is in his sixth year coaching the Tiger men's golf program and has Princeton to five Ivy League titles during his tenure.
"They come here with incredible academic and athletic credentials. They are under enormous pressure to succeed athletically and academically. They want to excel and they are used to excelling."
The Tigers will need to draw heavily on that quality later this week when they head to Stanford, Calif. to compete in the NCAA West Regional from May 19-21. Princeton is seeded 26th of the 27 schools at the regional. The teams that finish in the top 10 will advance to the NCAA championship final which will be held at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Md. from June 1-4.
Princeton, which coasted to a 31-stroke victory at the Ivy League Championships in mid-April, heads into the regional feeling it has nothing to lose.
"We don't have to play perfect golf," asserted Green, whose club placed 26th in the 2004 Central Regional. "This is the most talented team I've had since I've been here and probably the most talented Princeton team in the last 20 years. When we stand on the first tee, we won't be intimidated. Everyone on the team is capable of shooting under par. We're just going to play and have fun."
Princeton will be relying on senior star Creighton Page, who had plenty fun at the Ivy tournament as he placed first in the individual standings.
"He and I have been talking about for a year about him not having won a college tournament," recalled Green, in assessing Page's win which saw him card a six-under par 210.
"He had been eyeing that for a while and he was at the top of his game. I think he made only three bogeys the whole time. He's a unique individual. He likes to play rather than bang balls on the driving range. With him, it's more about being in the right frame of mind as much as the golf swing."
The Tigers, though, are not a one-man team by any means. "Our team is seven players, they are as close as seven people could be," said Green, whose other key players include juniors Jesse Dixon and Jason Gerken and together with sophomores Brent Herlihy and John Sawin. "It's a community effort which is unusual in a sport like golf. They all get along and support each other. I feel comfortable putting any of our seven players out there in any order."
Green is more than comfortable with the current state of the Princeton program program. "We couldn't be happier with the position we are in and the level of our success," said Green. "It has allowed us to attract a higher quality of player. We have guys who graduated recently who we probably wouldn't recruit now. We can go after top-100 players."
As a result, Princeton is looking to increase its profile nationally. "The way we want to go now is to not only have success in the Ivy League but to take a step on the national level," asserted Green. "If we could get out of the region, that would be historic, just an unbelievable achievement."
With its group of overachievers, such an accomplishment would be par for the course for these Tigers.
