Women's Golf Ends Fall Season with Win

Harvard Women’s Golf wrapped up its third tournament victory of the season at the Lehigh Invitational over the past two days, providing a successful conclusion to an excellent fall season.

The team romped home by twelve strokes in the end over Ivy rival Princeton following an initially close first day.

“It was windy and kind of cold so a lot of the teams were distracted and weren’t able to score as well as they normally would,” Coach Kevin Rhoads said. “However, we were able to score pretty close to what we normally do and came away with the good result.”

It was a high-quality performance from the Crimson squad, as all four of the players whose scores counted towards the team total had high individual finishes.

Bonnie Hu, Anne Cheng and Courtney Hooton all finished tied for fourth place, while junior Tiffany Lim claimed second place with very consistent rounds of 74 and 72, both under tough conditions.

“She hit a lot of good shots and then when she was fooled by the wind or it was hard for her to know what to do, she hunkered down and made some good putts,” Rhoads said. “She also managed herself and the golf course really well so I’m really pleased for her.”

Throughout the tournament, observers and players alike could not help but comment on the tough playing conditions, which served as a timely reminder that the mild autumn days will now inevitably begin to fade into the frigid grips of winter in the northeast.

Coach Rhoads was keen to stress that the course itself was not to blame, but rather the late-October weather, which incurred a frost delay on both days.

While the rough weather surely impacted almost all aspects of play over the course of the weekend, senior captain Hu thought that the greens were made particularly tough by the elements.

“The course conditions were very hard because it was really windy and the greens were incredibly fast,” Hu said. “But I would say everyone on the team concentrated on their own game and played their best. Ultimately we were rewarded.”

The conditions were harsher on Sunday and proved particularly tough for Navy. The Midshipmen’s total score improved from 380 on Sunday, when two of its players shot triple digits, to 346 on Monday.

Throughout the tournament, only one round was under par, courtesy of reigning Ivy League champion and eventual winner Kelly Shon of Princeton.

This marks the end of a successful fall season for the Crimson. The team has positioned itself as the premier Ivy squad, twice ousting old foes in the Tigers, including on their own course.

Not only has Harvard won all three tournaments played on the East Coast, but it has also managed a more than respectable finish of sixth against extremely high-level of competition at the Golfweek Conference Challenge.

The weather now gets cooler and the golfers will move inside before emerging to battle again in the spring.

As a whole, the team emphasizes the process of improving and competing over specific outcomes, yet to this point in the season, its outcomes have failed to disappoint.

“It is fun at artificial breaks, like the end of the season for example, to ask ‘How did we do?’, and ‘Are we working on the right things?’,” Rhoads said. “If we measure ourselves against the competition we had, we had three wins and… it was a pretty successful fall. I am very proud of what the team did. I am very proud of how we worked as a team. Nobody takes days off, nobody is selfish.”

“To have good team results all the time in such an individual sport, everyone really has to do the right things day in day out,” he continued. “The fact that we do that and have some nice results to show for it—I think that’s quite a successful fall.”

—Staff writer Julian Ryan can be reached at ryan.julian93@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @JRCrimson.