The Columbia men’s golf team will be heading to New Haven to compete in the Macdonald’s Cup, hosted by Ivy rival Yale. The site will be the 6749-yard Yale Golf Course, often considered one of the best collegiate venues in the nation. The tournament is named in honor of famed architect and USGA cofounder Charles B. Macdonald.

Last season’s Yale Invitational was marked by windy conditions, producing average scores in the 80’s. Narrow fairways and greens often flanked by deep bunkers will come into play this week. Two of the holes—the fourth and ninth—have been ranked in the top 100 most difficult holes by Golf Magazine. Bulldogs themselves finished in a tie for seventh in 2006, when Binghamton University took the top prize, followed by Penn and Seton Hall.

The Lions are coming off of a strong showing at the St. Johns Invitational, where they finished fifth in a field of 18. Columbia did not take part in Yale’s home event last season, opting instead to play the Joe Agee Invitational in Virginia. The Lions’ season has been marked so far by the youth of its players, with new freshmen and sophomores consistently starting each week. That group includes freshmen Austin Quinten and Clark Granum and sophomore Cashel Rosier. The squad consists of one senior, Gus Quartararo, who is in his first season as a regular in the lineup. While it’s not the same group that carried a lead into the final round of last season’s Ivy championship, it also means that there is little chance of another uncharacteristic collapse at the spring finale.

The Lions will finish up the fall season at the Big Five Invitational hosted by Penn, where they came out victorious a year ago. The spring season will start up again on the West Coast just as last season, with notable tournaments such as the Diablo Grande, hosted by Drake University, and the Western Collegiate, hosted by Santa Cruz.