At this past weekend’s Andover Invitational, Andover Golf placed second out of eight teams with a four-score total of 309, beaten only by Deerfield, who broke the tournament record with a score of 299. Tyler Tsay ’15 posted a remarkable score of 74, including five birdies. “He’s played well in all of our stroke play matches this season, and he continues to show why he deserves to play number one,” said Kavan Canekeratne ‘14. The rest of the team also shot well with Casey Durant ’14 and Evan Kudlinski ’13 both shooting 78, Canekeratne shooting 79 and Co-Captain John Perkins ’13 shooting 81. “As far as our biggest strengths, we have a deep team, and our one through five players [in the lineup] can all play well and contribute,” said Canekeratne. The Newport Country Club in Newport, RI, hosted the Andover Invitational. Newport is a highly acclaimed course in very good condition with firm and fast greens. Since Newport is on the coast, the Invitational is usually very windy. However, the wind was unusually calm on the weekend of the tournament, making the course play much easier than usual and enabling the teams to shoot better scores than expected. On Wednesday May 1, Andover traveled to St. Mark’s.Andover easily won with a score of 4.5-2.5. “We were glad to have avenged last year’s tie and are feeling great heading into our Deerfield match,” said Ellie Blum ’15. Blum won her match four holes up with three to go. In addition to Blum, Perkins, Tsay and Co-Captain Shin-Jae Lee ’13 also defeated their opponents. Although Deerfield beat Andover by ten strokes at the Invitational, Andover is confident that it can come out on top at home on May 4. “We’ve got Deerfield at home for the first time ever, which is a big equalizer,” said Kudlinski. “To win, the top of the lineup will likely need to garner at least six of nine points.” He added, “If we can play some head games along the way, we could definitely throw the [Deerfield] players off their games.” Andover takes on Tabor Academy after Deerfield on May 8.
