Lafayette golf wins second President’s Cup in a row

The Lafayette Leopards won the President’s Cup for the second year in a row, making it the first time either Lafayette or Lehigh won two years in a row.

Five years ago, Lafayette and Lehigh created the annual competition the President’s Cup.

“I definitely think it has the potential to make the Laf-Lehigh rivalry even bigger,” senior Travis Ricca said. “There is a lot of excitement on the course in this type of play.”

The President’s Cup is based on the Ryder Cup, an unconventional golf competition between Europe and the U.S which consists of a series of different events such as better ball, alternate shot and singles. Players are awarded for winging matches and at the end, points are added up for each side to determine which school wins the President’s Cup.

This unique format is exciting for the players involved.

“We don’t get to play competitive match play golf very often because our tournaments are always stroke play,” sophomore Art Griffin said. “So it’s always a treat for all of us to change it up a bit and bring out our competitive sides in the Ryder Cup format.”

The first four matches have been split between the two schools, with each winning every other year. This year however, Lafayette broke the streak and won for the second year in a row by a score of nine points to seven points.

Both Ricca and Griffin, who registered three and a half points combined, made major contributions to the team. But, the golfer who led the team in scoring was freshman Patrick McGinley, who had two and a half points alone.

“[McGinley] played great especially for it being his first time in the event,” Ricca said.

Although young, the team had a lot of confidence heading into the match.

“With such a young and strong team this year I think that we all were confident in taking down Lehigh this year, but it is one thing to say you’re going to do it and it’s another to go out there and fight hard and bring home the cup,” Griffin said. “All in all the team is very satisfied in repeating our dominance over Lehigh.”

“We had a good feeling this year that we would beat Lehigh, as we have beat them in all of the previous stroke play tournaments,” Ricca said. “But under that pressure and those conditions anything could happen.”

The team did not let the pressure get to them, however, and was able to beat Lehigh to secure their third President’s Cup and take the all time series lead.