Harvard's linksters capped a highly successful season last week by qualifying for the NCAA Championships.

The Crimson finished first in the District I Tournament at Hanover. N.H. last Thursday and Friday with a 603 score, five shots better than the second-place UMass Minutemen.

Harvard accomplished this feat despite the sub-par (as in too many shots over par) performance of number one man Alex Vik, a victory equivalent to the Celtics winning the NBA Championship with Henry Finkel as the starting center.

Iom Yellin and Peter Zurkow keyed the Crimson's win, finishing third and fourth in the individual scoring with 36-hole scores of 145 and 146, respectively.

Yale's Steve Sherrill, the Elis' fifth-rated player, carded an incredible 67 (including a 30 on the back nine, a course record) on the final 18 holes to shock everybody within five-iron distance of Hanover. Sherrill captured individual honors by one stroke over Dartmouth's Jerry Daly.

Sherrill and Daly will thus join the five man Crimson and Minutemen squads the last week of June at Ohio State for the NCAAs.

For Harvard, the key words were "team," which is rather strange considering that golf is generally regarded as the most individualistic of all sports, and "coaching," an exemplary job of which was performed by second-year man Tim Taylor.

With the exception of Vik, the four remaining linksters are all seniors, and had witnessed previous Crimson squads fall short in their attempts to qualify for the Masters of collegiate golf.

A Plague of Birdies

This year they made up their minds that nothing short of a plague would stand in their way. They spent two weeks practicing in Florida, hardly a chore by any means, but practice nonetheless, and then set their sights upon the NCAAs during early season triumphs in the Ivy League and in the Greater Boston Championships.

A few disappointing performances followed, but on Dartmouth's home course last week, the linksters reaped the fruits of their labors. Steve McConnell had a 152, and the Crimson's final total came about via Jon Ellis's 160.

All of which means that come the final week of June. When most will have been three weeks departed from Cambridge, the linksters will depart for Columbus, Ohio and a rendezvous with the same sand traps and water hazards that once caused Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf a whole lot of grief...and bogeys.