Women's Golf Stumbles to Fourth at Ivies

Though it rolled into the Ivy League Championships with seemingly unstoppable momentum, the Harvard women’s golf team found itself dragging to a disappointing finish, finally slowed down by this year’s cold, wet spring.

The narrow, tree-lined fairways and fast, sloping greens at the Trenton Country Club in Trenton, N.J., confounded the Crimson, which finished fourth of seven teams in the three-round tournament, shooting a 110 over-par 974 (326-329-319), which put it 41 strokes behind first-place Columbia and 21 strokes behind third-place Yale.

“We’re all disappointed in our performance this weekend,” sophomore Ali Bode said. “This has been a successful season for us, and we were hoping to finish it with a good performance in the Ivies.”

Harvard found its high hopes let down after the first of two rounds on Saturday, when its five golfers shot a combined 326, putting the team in third place, 18 shots out of the lead.

“After a first practice round,” coach Kevin Rhoads said, “I knew we needed to do a real good job of managing expectations.”

The Crimson found its golfers less sure of themselves than would have been ideal, owing to the short spring season and the exceptional scarcity of good practice time that came as a result of the stormy late winter and early spring. Though some facets of their games showed their potential for success, none of Harvard’s golfers mustered a solid enough all-around performance to break into the top five, with the Crimson’s lowest-scoring golfer, sophomore and defending Ivy League champion Emily Balmert, coming in seventh with a combined score of 238 (78-80-80).

That performance did, however, earn Balmert a spot on the All-Ivy team.

“Emily worked really hard to make sure that her long game was cooperating,” Rhoads said. “And with the treeline the way it was, that came in huge.”

Unfortunately for Balmert, her short game didn’t rise to its full potential, as she struggled on and around the green with shots that she ordinarily would have made.

“Even if you were strong in one area, you had to have it all together to do well,” Balmert said. “The course required you to play a really straight ball.”

Freshman Sarah Harvey followed Balmert for the Crimson, placing 16th with a total score of 244 (81-83-80). In contrast to Balmert, Harvey’s short game sustained her through the rounds while her drives faltered at times, as she failed to consistently produce the straight shots that Balmert emphasized as so important.

Though Rhoads characterized her play as some of the most solid that Harvard has had this whole season, Harvey was particularly happy with the eagle she shot on the second hole of her third round.

“It’s my one real highlight of this weekend,” Harvey said.

Bode and junior Jessica Hazelett came in close behind Harvey, tying for 17th with scores of 247. Hazelett shot three pretty consistent rounds (81-82-84), while Bode moved up nine places in the last round with a 75 after shooting 86 in her previous two rounds.

“My game is still a little rusty since our spring season wasn’t that long,” Bode said, “but yesterday, I came up with a new strategy and stuck with it.”

That strategy took Bode’s driver—with which she had been hitting long but erratic shots—out of her hands and replaced it with higher woods, allowing her to keep to the fairways with much greater regularity.

Junior Debbi Amanti rounded out the Crimson’s golfers, coming in 25th with a score of 255 (85-85-85).

—Staff writer Jonathan B. Steinman can be reached at steinman@fas.harvard.edu.