Women's Golf Posts Best-ever Finish at Ivy Championship

The Harvard women’s golf team certainly picked the perfect time to play some of its best golf of the year.

The Crimson made history over the weekend by placing third at the Ivy League Golf Championship in Trenton, N.J., the best showing by a Harvard squad in the seven-year history of the tournament.

Adding to the historical significance of the weekend was the fact that the Crimson finished ahead of Brown in a tournament, a feat that had not been accomplished by a Harvard team in eight years, according to captain Merry Chiampa.

“We knew we had it in us,” said Chiampa. “We hadn’t beaten Brown in a tournament before, but we had beaten them in [individual rounds].”

Princeton took top honors on the day with a 325-313-309—947, 13 strokes better than Yale and 65 better than the Crimson. Harvard finished 33 shots ahead of the Bears and just nine shots ahead of fourth-place Dartmouth.

The Ivy Championship is unique in that it is a 54-hole tournament—each golfer must play two full rounds on the opening day, a feat that took approximately nine and a half hours, according to junior J.J. Kang.

“It can get mentally grueling, but it’s a challenge that every team has to deal with,” said Kang. “None of us are used to playing 54 holes.”

“It’s a different mentality,” added Chiampa. “It’s more of a marathon. It comes down to who can gut it out the best.”

In addition to the challenge of having to play so many holes, scores were also likely inflated for every player by the difficulty of the Trenton Country Club course, which is notoriously narrow.

“It’s a short, tight course,” said Kang. “It’s easy to rack up [a lot of] strokes in just one or two holes.”

Individually, the Crimson was paced by Chiampa, who carded an 85-83-80—248 to finish in a tie for 12th at 32 strokes over par. Chiampa’s weekend was highlighted by consecutive birdies on the back nine during her final round.

“The back side was my friend,” Chiampa said. “I was never striking the ball really well, but we knew there were going to be big numbers [on the scoreboard].”

The top-12 finish was bittersweet for Chiampa, who is the only senior on the team.

“I didn’t even think about it until I stepped off the course, but that was my last Ivies,” she lamented.

Kang finished just behind Chiampa with a consistent score of 83-84-84—251 to finish in a tie for 15th. Like Chiampa, Kang recorded two birdies in her final round.

“I made a couple of errors and really paid for them,” Kang said.

Junior Carrie Baizer shot the team’s third-best score, an 89-86-84—159, while freshman Erin Wilson (87-89-85—161) and sophomore Jennifer Cronan (90-82-90—162) rounded out the team’s scoring.

Every Crimson member was among the top 24 golfers over the weekend, as Baizer, Wilson and Cronan finished 22nd, 23rd and 24th, respectively.

“[The scores] show that it was very much a team effort,” said Kang. “None of us performed exceptionally well.”

Harvard now has one more week to practice before playing its final competitive golf of the season. The team will participate in the Massachusetts Intercollegiate Championship on Friday before taking part in the Northeast Championship on Saturday and Sunday.

—Staff writer Jonathan P. Hay can be reached at hay@fas.harvard.edu.