Finishing nine shots shy of second place at the Yale Spring Invitational on Saturday, the golf team still seeks to improve its performances for Ivy play.

"We're very positive," said co-captain Luis Sanchez. "We're hoping that this week our numbers will turn around. We had a tough day at the Yale Invitational. We're not very pleased with our performance."

Harvard finished eighth out of 17 teams on Saturday. Overall, the Crimson shot 338. Sophomore Andy Rourke led the team with a round of 80, which tied him for 11th place among all competitors.

Sanchez was second on the team with an 84. Senior Ed Boyda shot 86 while junior Alex Gonzalez shot 88.

Hartford won the tournament, which was held at New Haven, the same site of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Tournament last week where the Crimson suffered a disappointing third place finish.

"The wind situation was a little different from the HYP Tournament," Sanchez said. "The wind was blowing into our faces and to the right. The conditions were tough; it was very windy and a little bit cold."

Additionally, the team had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday to leave the Harvard campus by 5 a.m.

Despite the inconveniences, Sanchez recalled a positive moment at the ninth hole, a 220-yard par 3 which features a gully eight feet deep.

"If you're standing at the wrong half of the green, you have to make an incredible putt, from a 30 to a 60 footer," Sanchez said. "It's hard to control the distance of the putts."

Sanchez hit a driver, and subsequently managed a two-putter for a par.

On Friday, the team will travel to Beth Page, N.Y. for a practice run before competing against league squads on Saturday and Sunday in the Ivy Tournament. Beth Page is the annual site of the Ivy tournament and--considering that it will host the 2002 US Open--it will surely pose a challenge to the collegiate golfers.

Looking ahead to the weekend competition, however, the Harvard golfers view Yale and Princeton as their toughest competitors.

Ken Rizvi, Yale's number one player, shot 76--six over par--at the HYP Tournament. Ben McConahey, Princeton's number one, was only two shots behind Rizvi with a 78.

Brown, which finished one shot ahead of Harvard on Saturday, is similar to the Crimson.

"Both teams have a pool of players with almost equal amounts of talent," Sanchez said. "Their scores are never very low."

The Country Club in Brookline, Harvard's home course, has re-opened today.