The last nine holes of the tournament boosted the confidence of many of the team’s golfers, according to Liu and Grillo. Both said they experienced problems with their technique throughout the weekend, and they felt that the end of Sunday helped clear those problems.

“I had several bad holes where I felt I had lost my swing,” Liu said. “But I felt good over the last seven or eight.”

The Crimson brought two other golfers: sophomore Michael Lai, who tied for 37th, and sophomore Kevin McCarthy who tied for 65th.

While the weather was a factor for all players, the Harvard golfers felt differently about how they thoughT the rain affected the course, which was voted the top college course in the nation by Golfweek last September.

“Wet weather—at least for Yale—makes the course more approachable,” Grillo said. “It made the course easier for everyone.”

He noted that putts rolled well on the green and fairways were easier to hit with the slick grass.

But Liu thought that the wet course was more difficult for people who hit higher approach shots.

He noted that low hitters might have an easier time with the fast speed of the greens, but overall, the rain made the course more challenging.

“The course conditions were terrible, and we had to work around that,” he said. “It was completely flooded.”

The rain did have a tangible impact on the tournament beyond playing conditions. Instead of playing 36 holes on Saturday and 18 on Sunday as originally scheduled, Saturday’s golf was delayed, and players only got in 18 holes.

But Liu hopes that the team can learn from its experience at Yale and fix its mistakes going into the Big 5 Invitational next weekend. It will be Harvard’s penultimate invite of the season.

“We have to work on our putting game a lot more,” he said. “As a team, we are as good as anyone out there. It’s just a matter of putting it all together for two or three rounds.”