Women’s golf struggles to seventh place on Princeton Invitational’s challenging course

The Harvard women’s golf team failed to replicate the success of its season opener and finished in seventh place overall yesterday at the Princeton Invitational.

The course at the Springdale Golf Club in Princeton, N.J., was slightly more challenging than the course the Crimson played a week ago at Dartmouth.

“At first look, we couldn’t tell that the course would be more difficult, but it required a little more local knowledge than other courses we play on,” Harvard coach Kevin Rhoads said. “It was harder to score on the greens.”

It was tough to decipher exactly how the team needed to change in order to make the second day more successful than the first. As a result, Harvard only improved its score by three strokes yesterday.

On Saturday, freshman Ali Bode was the team’s low scorer with a six-over 78, putting her at 11th place overall. Unfortunately, she was the only team member to score in the 70s during the first day of competition. Freshman Emily Balmert scored an 81 and sophomore Jessica Hazlett scored an 82. Rounding out the Crimson’s scorecard were juniors Jacqueline Rooney (85) and Erin Wilson (88), leaving Harvard in sixth place after day one.

Despite ideal weather, a rarity during the fall season, the team’s efforts to make a day-two comeback were unsuccessful.

“We played fine,” Rhoads said. “It just wasn’t our best performance.”

Although Harvard improved its numbers on the second day, the team fell to seventh place. On the bright side, Hazlett improved her score by four strokes and Balmert by three. The pair finished the tournament tied for 17th place. Rooney improved her score by four strokes to finish the second day with a score of 81.

Princeton won the tournament with a total score of 605, beating second-place Yale by 20 strokes. The Tigers’ Sharla Cloutier won the individual title. She had an ace on the 13th hole yesterday to help her score three-under with a tournament low 69.

Harvard plays in the Yale Invitational next weekend in New Haven.

—ELYSE N. HANSON