Women's Golf Pulls Away at Harvard Invitational

In the same week as coach Kevin Rhoads was named PGA New England teacher of the year, the Harvard women’s golf team claimed victory at the Harvard Invitational at the Bay Club in Mattapoisett, Mass., by a wide margin over Penn. After a close first day, the Crimson put in a better performance on Columbus Day, posting a team score of 286.

“Today is a really good day,” Rhoads said Monday. “Whenever you have a whole team effort and four scores that add up to something like that and it wasn’t just one person going low and everyone else kind of being medium—you have to be proud of that. Not only the effort, which we always try to focus on, but also to have those things come out and be such a low scoring team effort. I’m incredibly proud of [the performance].”

The first day of competition was a very close affair and by the end of play the Quakers and the Crimson were neck and neck, only separated by a total of three strokes, having established themselves as the premier competition amongst the five competing teams.

However, on Monday morning under glorious sunshine, Harvard put in arguably its best team performance of the young season. Whilst Penn went ten shots higher than their Sunday effort, the Crimson improved their score by thirteen strokes, averaging 1-over par between the four scores which counted.

“Every day that you play a new golf course, if you stay calm and you stay aware of your surroundings, it gets a little more intuitive,” Rhoads said. “I think it came together a little bit easier today because of that. We didn’t panic about being neck and neck with another team, we just stayed doing the things we normally do and with one more day of experience it turned in our favor.”

Within the impressive team performance, Harvard golfers were able to claim all of the top three spots in the individual standings. Last year’s Ivy Rookie of the year Christine Lin tied for second place with senior captain Bonnie Hu, who was honored by her teammates at the prize ceremony for her dedication as a captain. Freshman Anne Cheng finished in pole position, posting a total of 1-over par through two rounds.

“We played really well and I think it was a product of hard work,” Hu said. “Everyone here works really hard and we love being around each other so it’s fun to play. Going into the tournament, we were focusing on what we were able to do—focusing on the process. We focused on things were able to control, how committed we were to our shots, that’s usually how we play our best. Everyone on the team did a really good job of that and so I’m not surprised by the scores. I’m not surprised by the results but I am proud of them.”

The ethos of process over outcome is very much the mantra of the squad. Coach Rhoads’ philosophy can be summarized as judging a shot not by where it ends up, but rather by how the shot was played, and buying into that philosophy has seen a lot of success for the team thus far in the season.

“We’ve been indoctrinated,” Hu said. “When Kevin talks about process you can think about it in multiple ways. In small ways, you focus on details. So for example when you’re about to hit a shot, instead of focusing on the quality of the shot, you focus on things you can control, the angle your swing comes down and your pre-shot routine for example, and then let go of the result because it’s really hard to control outcome. You can put in your best effort and still shoot a poor score. But if you let go of the outcome and focus on what you can control, it’s good for your mental game and you’re able to achieve your potential better that way.”

“When our focus gets too much on the outcome, we stop doing the little things that wind up with a good outcome,” Rhoads said. “I want ourselves a little removed from what we do shot to shot, but instead what are you going to focus on within the shot. It sounds a little but tough to put your finger on and a little bit tough perhaps to buy into that philosophy, but it tends to be easier when we have a good result like today.”

—Staff writer Julian Ryan can be reached at julian.ryan@thecrimson.com.