Killiney’s Leonard wins Ivy League Championship
KILLINEY’S Eoin Leonard clinched the biggest win of his collegiate career when he won the Ivy League Men’s Championship after a playoff at Stonewall in Pennsylvania, helping Yale to the team title.
A former Leinster Boys champion, it was his fourth senior win worldwide following that record-breaking, wireto-wire victory in the Boyd Quaich at St Andrews last year.
Tied for first with teammate James Nicholas the recent Yale Spring Invitational, Leonard got up and down from a fairway bunker on the 18th for par and a one-under 69 to tie with Nicholas again on nine-over 219.
He then went on to win at the second tie hole after Yale carded a tournament-low score of 282 in Sunday’s third and final round to win the conference championship by 22 strokes from Dartmouth.
Joint overnight leaders Harvard shot 25-over on Sunday to slip to third.
Yale’s Teddy Zinsner finished in a tie for fifth at 12-over while senior captain Will Bernstein tied for 10th to help Yale to its first Ivy League Championship since 2011.
Next up for the Bulldogs is the NCAA Regionals from May 14-16 with a spot in the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship on the line.
Majoring in the History of Science, Medicine & Public Health, Leonard is in his Junior year, which means he will not graduate until next year.