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Spotlight on Davis Mullany
4/15/2011 9:21:00 AM | Men's Golf
This college golf thing isn't so tough.
Dartmouth senior Davis Mullany never said it but no one could have blamed him if he had thought it for just a bit because, seriously, how many golfers win their first-ever collegiate golf tournament?
That's exactly what the graduate of Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Mass., did as a freshman in the fall of 2007. Mullany carded rounds of 70-73–143 at Hanover Country Club to finish one over par and post a four-stroke victory that brought the Big Green the Dartmouth Invitational championship. It marked the first tournament title by a Dartmouth golfer since Lee Birchall turned the trick six years earlier and the first Big Green victory in its own event since Birchall won at Hanover in 2000.
Ironically, although Mullany had played a lot of golf in the summer before arriving at Dartmouth, he had struggled with his shotmaking prior to his first collegiate competition.
“I had been playing very poorly for the whole preseason,” he recalled. “I normally don't play that well during practice sessions. It's like a focus thing. If I don't have competition I mentally slack off a little bit.
“But I ended up playing really well that week. It was awesome. I was really confident after that victory.”
Although he hasn't been able to repeat as an individual champion, Mullany has had his share of highlights since winning the Dartmouth Invitational, most notably a second place at the New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championship last year. Aided by a 5-under par 67 over the first 18 holes – the low round of the tournament – he missed taking medalist honors by just one stroke while helping the Big Green place third in the 12-team field.
In each of his three years at Dartmouth Mullany has been the Big Green's second finisher at the Ivy League championships. Dartmouth was seventh his freshman year, third the next spring and fourth last year. He's optimistic that the Big Green has what it takes to get over the hump and dethrone three-time defending champion Columbia in this year's Ivy League championship at Galloway National Golf Club in New Jersey later this month.
Should Coach Rich Parker's charges do it and the Big Green manage its first Ivy League title since 1983 Mullany will be one up on his father, Tom '77, whose own Dartmouth golf career saw him graduate one year before the Big Green won its first Ivy League tournament in 1978.
It was his father who brought Mullany for a campus tour when he started thinking about colleges. He'd briefly looked into Duke and Wake Forest but with no real resume on the national junior circuit he quickly learned he wasn't on their radar. Nor was he all that eager to have to hop a plane to get back and forth to school.
“So I came up with my dad and visited,” he said. “I stayed with Rob Henley '09, whose dad was on the (Dartmouth golf) team with my dad. My dad introduced me to Rich and he said he'd help me. I talked to other Ivy League coaches and they had already finished most of their recruiting so I thought I might as well apply to Dartmouth and get into the best school that I can.”
Mullany has seen the Dartmouth program grow by leaps and bounds ever since.
“After my freshman year we picked up Pete (Williamson) and when he won the Ivies it really got serious. Now we have a bunch of guys who can really play.”
And just as importantly, they have somewhere to do it when the snows of Northern New England come early and stay late.
“The new practice facility in Leverone is awesome,” Mullany said. “I will hit maybe once or twice a week just to keep loose. I mostly like to chip at Leverone because the short game goes the quickest in the long winter. If you have your chipping back pretty quick than ball striking comes back pretty quick.”
Among those who have been known to hit a few balls in the practice facility is someone Mullany has played a round or two with at Hanover. Fellow by the name of Jim Yong Kim who just happens to be the Dartmouth president.
“He's really impressive but with everything he's done, he's pretty funny. He's also a really good golfer,” Mullany said. “He was hitting driver off the deck on 18 and no one does that. He just has a really athletic swing.”
After doing several finance internships Mullany decided on a psychology major and is now thinking about a post-baccalaureate year to catch up on the science classes he would need for med school.
Before then, though, there's the unfinished business of chasing that elusive Ivy League championship.
“I think we have a really good shot at it this year,” he said. “It would be amazing. We've been trying to do it for a long time. I don't know how long it's been. It is always our goal at the beginning of every season. It would just mean a lot.
“We haven't really done it yet, but what we need is four or five guys to play well at once. We always have two or three and can never quite put it together. So we're hoping it will happen one of these days. A couple of them, actually.”
by Bruce Wood
Dartmouth senior Davis Mullany never said it but no one could have blamed him if he had thought it for just a bit because, seriously, how many golfers win their first-ever collegiate golf tournament?
That's exactly what the graduate of Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, Mass., did as a freshman in the fall of 2007. Mullany carded rounds of 70-73–143 at Hanover Country Club to finish one over par and post a four-stroke victory that brought the Big Green the Dartmouth Invitational championship. It marked the first tournament title by a Dartmouth golfer since Lee Birchall turned the trick six years earlier and the first Big Green victory in its own event since Birchall won at Hanover in 2000.
Ironically, although Mullany had played a lot of golf in the summer before arriving at Dartmouth, he had struggled with his shotmaking prior to his first collegiate competition.
“I had been playing very poorly for the whole preseason,” he recalled. “I normally don't play that well during practice sessions. It's like a focus thing. If I don't have competition I mentally slack off a little bit.
“But I ended up playing really well that week. It was awesome. I was really confident after that victory.”
Although he hasn't been able to repeat as an individual champion, Mullany has had his share of highlights since winning the Dartmouth Invitational, most notably a second place at the New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championship last year. Aided by a 5-under par 67 over the first 18 holes – the low round of the tournament – he missed taking medalist honors by just one stroke while helping the Big Green place third in the 12-team field.
In each of his three years at Dartmouth Mullany has been the Big Green's second finisher at the Ivy League championships. Dartmouth was seventh his freshman year, third the next spring and fourth last year. He's optimistic that the Big Green has what it takes to get over the hump and dethrone three-time defending champion Columbia in this year's Ivy League championship at Galloway National Golf Club in New Jersey later this month.
Should Coach Rich Parker's charges do it and the Big Green manage its first Ivy League title since 1983 Mullany will be one up on his father, Tom '77, whose own Dartmouth golf career saw him graduate one year before the Big Green won its first Ivy League tournament in 1978.
It was his father who brought Mullany for a campus tour when he started thinking about colleges. He'd briefly looked into Duke and Wake Forest but with no real resume on the national junior circuit he quickly learned he wasn't on their radar. Nor was he all that eager to have to hop a plane to get back and forth to school.
“So I came up with my dad and visited,” he said. “I stayed with Rob Henley '09, whose dad was on the (Dartmouth golf) team with my dad. My dad introduced me to Rich and he said he'd help me. I talked to other Ivy League coaches and they had already finished most of their recruiting so I thought I might as well apply to Dartmouth and get into the best school that I can.”
Mullany has seen the Dartmouth program grow by leaps and bounds ever since.
“After my freshman year we picked up Pete (Williamson) and when he won the Ivies it really got serious. Now we have a bunch of guys who can really play.”
And just as importantly, they have somewhere to do it when the snows of Northern New England come early and stay late.
“The new practice facility in Leverone is awesome,” Mullany said. “I will hit maybe once or twice a week just to keep loose. I mostly like to chip at Leverone because the short game goes the quickest in the long winter. If you have your chipping back pretty quick than ball striking comes back pretty quick.”
Among those who have been known to hit a few balls in the practice facility is someone Mullany has played a round or two with at Hanover. Fellow by the name of Jim Yong Kim who just happens to be the Dartmouth president.
“He's really impressive but with everything he's done, he's pretty funny. He's also a really good golfer,” Mullany said. “He was hitting driver off the deck on 18 and no one does that. He just has a really athletic swing.”
After doing several finance internships Mullany decided on a psychology major and is now thinking about a post-baccalaureate year to catch up on the science classes he would need for med school.
Before then, though, there's the unfinished business of chasing that elusive Ivy League championship.
“I think we have a really good shot at it this year,” he said. “It would be amazing. We've been trying to do it for a long time. I don't know how long it's been. It is always our goal at the beginning of every season. It would just mean a lot.
“We haven't really done it yet, but what we need is four or five guys to play well at once. We always have two or three and can never quite put it together. So we're hoping it will happen one of these days. A couple of them, actually.”
by Bruce Wood
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