The Colgate University Men’s Golf team might not have started the season the way they wanted to, but the team is now getting hot when it matters with the Patriot League Championships right around the corner. The Raiders are heading into the postseason with momentum after a very solid performance at the Abarta Coca-Cola Collegiate Invitational, where they finished second out of seventeen teams competing. They followed up that performance by winning the Upstate Battle at Seven Oaks Golf Club. 

“The team is super excited for the upcoming Patriot League championship this week. We have been preparing all spring and feel like we are peaking at the right time, coming off a few top-team finishes in recent weeks,” sophomore Wyatt Peterson said. “We are excited to showcase our hard work against the rest of our conference.”

A lot of the team’s success involves capitalizing on each other’s individual strengths on the course, as well as their chemistry off of it.

“Every member of our team has their own strengths,” Head Coach Keith Tyburski said. “Some are great ball strikers, others have great short games. We have a couple players who can hit the ball a long way, and those that almost never miss a fairway. When we combine that with solid putting, we’re a tough team to beat.”

Having solid cohesiveness as a team is a crucial but often underappreciated aspect of the game. Golf is as much a mental game as it is a physical one, requiring an extreme amount of focus, willpower and, at times, the ability to have a short memory. A team with good chemistry provides each individual player with a support network for their confidence. Without the team’s support to back a player up, a bad hole can quickly spiral into a bad stretch, and then a bad round. 

In that same vein, developing the right mental approach is one of the most important things that coaches and players can do to elevate their overall game.

“There is a lot of time to overthink a shot [or] your technique,” Tyburski said. “I always encourage the guys to react to what’s in front of them, and learn from what’s behind them.”

Also important for adopting the right mental framework for good golf is the sheer amount of time that a player puts in on the course, which is of course influenced by the weather.

“Spring golf [can be] tough in the northeast as we wait for weather to cooperate and courses to open. We started our spring season earlier than normal with a tough result, but it ended up helping us a lot in the long run,” Tyburski said. 

The fast approach of spring in Hamilton allowed the players to get back on the course sooner than expected, and the extra playing time is paying dividends when it counts. 

Sophomore Robbie Herzig spoke to the benefits of having such a warm spring in Hamilton.

“The team has had a solid last few tournaments and I just think it’s a result of our desire and dedication to perform well. We didn’t have our best stuff for parts of this fall, which really motivated us to use the off-season and the early parts of spring to improve and have a strong showing in the spring, which we have seen come to fruition so far. We’re really excited to carry this momentum into the Patriot League Championship this weekend.”

As for the upcoming Patriot League Championships, men’s golf will be facing a field of seven other teams: Army, Bucknell, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh, Navy and the defending champions Loyola Maryland. The field of competition is going to be highly competitive, as always, but the Raiders’ recent performances demonstrated that they have the ability to get things done. 

This year’s Men’s Golf Patriot League Championships will take place from April 28-30 at Hillendale Country Club in Phoenix, MD. It’s certainly shaping up to be an exciting postseason.