The men’s golf team claimed its first Patriot League Championship title in over a decade and its fourth title ever at Hillendale Country Club in Maryland last semester. Over the two days of play, Lehigh finished the 54-hole tournament at 894 (307-291-296), with their final round score of 296 being the second lowest among the competition.
After these results, Coach Henry D’Alberto was voted Coach of the Year for the second time. Named for the First Team All-Patriot League was junior golfer Aidan Oehrle, who finished in third place at six over par 222 (76-74-72).
D’Alberto said Oehrle’s best is yet to come.
“Ever since I got to Lehigh, I’ve definitely gotten better at the game itself, but even more so the mental side of the game,” Oehrle said.
Before Lehigh, he played in the United States Golf Association junior tournament and earned All-Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League Honors while he played on a state championship-winning team back home in Pittsburgh.
Oehrle said his golfing career goes almost as far back as his memory does. He said one of his first memories of playing golf was around the time he started to walk at just a few years old, holding a little putter on a green with his father and grandfather.
He said he chose to continue his golfing career at Lehigh because of its distance from home, academic rigor and wide-reaching network through the business college.
Now a finance major, he hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps to become a financial adviser. That is, if he doesn’t pursue his dream of playing golf professionally, he said.
“I know how hard it is to make it,” Oehrle said. “I need to prove to myself these next two years that I am capable of playing at that level and winning.”
During the fall of his sophomore year at Lehigh, Oehrle continued to grow as a player, tying a Lehigh record of 64 strokes in his final round at The Doc Gimmler, marking the lowest round of the 2023 season for all Lehigh golfers. Oehrle’s performance set him on the right track going into last year’s Patriot League Championship.
Leading up to the championship weekend at the end of April, Oehrle said he hit his stride.
D’Alberto said without ever coming in the top 10 before, Oehrle had two top-fives in a row in tournaments directly leading up to the championship weekend last spring.
Since golf is such a mental game, this kind of resilience under pressure bodes well for Oehrle’s success on the team from here on out, D’Alberto said. Although his job is to get the best play out of his players, he said collegiate athletes must have the talent necessary to succeed – and he thinks Oehrle does.
Beyond his ability on the green, D’Alberto said it’s Oehrle’s mental fortitude that sets him apart from the rest.
“In particular for (Oehrle), his mental game — how to focus and block out distractions, asking questions, being intuitive — he’s really gotten better and better at focusing,” D’Alberto said. “And when you have focus and confidence, you can do things you never thought you could.”
During one practice directly preceding Oehrle’s run of success, the men’s golf team did not break out any clubs or balls. Instead, they sat in a circle and listened to a golf and sports psychologist speak to them about his philosophies and then they exchanged their takeaways and perspectives about what they learned.
“That’s really what I focused on over the next couple of weeks,” Oehrle said. “Ever since then, I started playing very well.”
During the final hole of the championship weekend, Oehrle said he felt unsure about his performance. This uncertainty vanished when he was alerted by one of his fellow Mountain Hawks on the sidelines that they had five points on the nearest team, earning them the title.
The moment that followed was a jubilant celebration between Oehrle and his teammate, senior Edmund Broderick.
“Usually, coming down the stretch, we would know (where) we stand against the other teams and can play accordingly, but this wasn’t the case here,” Broderick said. “It was a culmination of not just the four days in Maryland, but every practice session and tournament leading up to that Sunday.”
Oehrle and Lehigh’s men’s golf team’s next home appearance is Oct. 20 and 21 for the Lehigh Invitational.
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