Women’s Golf Hosts Harvard Invitational

After finishing tied for sixth at the Golfweek Conference Challenge in Vail, the Harvard women’s golf team hopes that returning to closer fairways at this weekend’s Harvard Invitational will lead it back to the top of the podium. But for the defending Ivy champions, the journey to the eighteenth championship is just as important as the finish itself.

“Our team focuses on the process of reaching our goal, which means not focusing so much on the result and more about how to make things happen,” freshman standout Anne Cheng said. “As a team we practice on key points, constantly focusing on these and we keep working on it until we get it right.”

Junior Tiffany Lim echoed her teammate’s valuing of process over the final result.

“[Coach Rhoads] is very much about emphasizing process and the idea of going through and inputting the right sensory signals that [we] want into [our] own game,” Lim said. “Then regardless of what the outcome is, we continue to input those right signals. Our goal is to not be affected by the outcome.”

The process seems to be working, as the outcomes have been positive thus far. The Crimson opened the year with a 12-stroke victory at the Princeton Invitational at the Springdale Golf Club, which included host Princeton, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania in the field.

The following week Harvard teed off against tougher opponents at the Golfweek Conference Challenge, whose organizers invited the conference leaders from 18 leagues to compete on the Red Sky Golf Course. Faced with unfavorable weather conditions and a general unfamiliarity with the course, the Crimson saw its scores rise and final position drop, though its team score improved with each round.

“[The Golfweek Conference Challenge] was a bigger and stronger tournament for us,” Lim said. “Even though we didn’t play as well as we did at Princeton, I thought we also still played well as a team.“

This weekend, the team will face a much smaller scale of competition than at the Golfweek Conference Challenge. Only five teams other than Harvard will be in the field.

The Crimson looks to Cheng in particular to continue her strong early season play. She finished her first collegiate tournament tied for fourth and currently leads the team in scoring average (74.17) and par four scoring (4.15). The upcoming weekend is the next test of her limited experience and an opportunity for her to earn a third straight top ten finish.

“I’ve been trying to keep as best a focus as I can and not try to get myself overwhelmed with too many things that I have to work on in my game,” Cheng said. “So I focus on one or two small things and practice it for a few weeks to help improve my overall game.”

Though this weekend’s Harvard Invitational is technically a home tournament, Harvard has only practiced at The Bay Course for the past week. But for Crimson golfers with more years of experience, the Harvard Invitational is synonymous with strong finishes.

Senior team captain Bonnie Hu finished second at the Harvard Invitational her sophomore year, posting an 11-over par 155. This season, Hu finished tied for 14th at 13-over par at the Princeton Invitational on Sept, then shot 80-74-78 (232) at the Golfweek Conference Challenge .

Lim finished third at invitational her freshman year. Harvard did not host the invitational last fall. After carding the lowest single-round competitive score in Crimson history in the first round of the Princeton Invitational and eventually winning the tournament with a 4-under par (212), Tiffany will be looking to find that form again this weekend.

“Performance-wise, I just had some technique changes that I’m making in my swing and I knew that it would be a process and that it’s going to take some time to settle in,” Lim said. “For me to play so well at Princeton was surprising and I took advantage of some good breaks that I got and at Golfweek, I stuck to my goal of trying to improve long-term with my technique.”

Even after posting higher scores at the Golfweek Conference Challenge, Lim leads the team in birdies (23), average first round score (71) and par three scoring (2.88). But once again, the team’s focus is about more than just posting the lowest score.

“Our goal [for this weekend] is to play our own game,” Lim said. “We focus on what we need to do to be better and not worry about the outcome or what other schools are doing,”