While the best golfers in the world battled for a green jacket at Augusta, Linfield golf was putting on a show of their own in Walla Walla, Washington.

The men’s team put on for a t-4 finish out of nine teams overall, and the women ended their weekend in sixth place out of eight teams.

The Wine Valley golf course proved an interesting challenge to both teams despite relatively ideal weather.

“As for weather, [the conditions] were pretty ideal. Sunny and hot, but on the second day the wind started to pick up,” Kyle Hargrave, ’16, said.

“There were a lot of bunkers, both fairway and greenside, and some of them are hidden so it really helps to know the course before playing it.”

“As for the golf course, there isn’t a single tree on the property. It’s wide open so you can hit it somewhat offline and still get away with it,” Hargrave said.

“As an individual, I had a really hard time putting. The greens were really firm and fast, and I kept hitting my approach shots in the wrong area on the greens, which led to some three putts,” Hargrve said.

“As a team, we had a lot of unnecessary bad holes, but I would say everybody played pretty well for the most part today,” he said.

The Linfield golfers also found the greens to be an unexpected challenge.

“The greens were firm, which was something we haven’t experienced in a while due to all this rain,” Madeline Rice, ’18, said. “You could easily turn a tap in birdie into a three-putt bogey.”

Hargrave echoed Rice’s observations, “The greens were tough because there was a lot of slope to them and they were also very fast, but all in all, pretty damn good conditions.”

Beyond the conditions of the course many stories arose from this weekend including two sophomores leading the men’s team to tie for 11th in the tournament.

Lucas Balala and Logan Davis both shot 148 over the two-day tournament with Balala shooting the team’s lowest score of 72.

Freshman Mason Krieger managed to place third on the team and t-16th overall with a score of 150.

Davis had to battle adversity to match Balala at the top of the team.

“I opened with a quad bogey the second day but made five birdies to fire back and save a good round when I could have easily let that round get away from me,” Davis said.

Ultimately Linfield golf has put itself in a good position with their scores this weekend.

“We came back from ten shots behind George Fox on Sunday to save some much needed points going into the conference championship in two weeks,” Davis said.

With such little time left in the season Linfield’s golfers are headed in a good direction.