Women's Golf Rounds out Season with Win at Delaware

Wrapping up the autumn portion of its schedule, the Harvard women’s golf team traveled to the Mid-Atlantic to take part in the University of Delaware Lady Blue Hen Invitational. After three rounds of play, the Crimson secured a first-place finish, bookending the fall slate with a pair of championships.

The two-day event was held at the Rehoboth Beach Country Club in Rehoboth, Del. The 6,008-yard course played at a par 71 for the weekend. The course features four par three holes to go along with four par fives. Two rounds were held on Saturday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The final round took place early Sunday.

After rain cut short the last tournament Harvard played at Princeton, players were able to get in all 54 holes this weekend.

Harvard came out of the gate a bit slow, falling six strokes behind the hosts from Delaware and sitting in fourth place after round one. However, the Crimson was able to pick up the pace Saturday afternoon by firing a 299, the only round score below the 300 mark for any school at the invite.

Harvard would hold on to its position atop the leaderboard Sunday, shooting a +23 207 and cementing a 10-shot victory over runner-up Delaware.

“It was a very positive finish for us in what has been a challenging fall in terms of injuries,” Harvard coach Kevin Rhoads said. “To have two tournament victories out of four makes me really proud of what the ladies were able to accomplish. Their talent really shined through with little margin for error in the lineup and plenty of adversity to overcome.”

The Crimson played particularly well on par five holes, shooting at +15, top among all participating schools. Harvard also led the pack in birdies and was second best on par four holes.

Other Ancient Eight squads present on the weekend were Penn and Dartmouth, who placed third and seventh, respectively. Seton Hall, Rutgers, Towson, Delaware State, and La Salle rounded out the 10 schools that entered into the invitational.

On the individual side of play, sophomore Anna Zhou was able to pick up her second championship trophy of the season. Her +10 223 bested Ashleigh Greenham of Rutgers by five shots. The Palo Alto, Calif. native’s round two total of 72, just one over par, was tied for the lowest of any player on the weekend with Ariane Klotz of Delaware and sophomore teammate Michelle Xie.

“This tournament and the end results we were able to come away with is really a nice confirmation that we have been sticking to working hard despite some unforeseen circumstances,” Zhou said. “We have all been focused on perfecting our individual games, and it’s nice to see that we seem to be moving in a positive direction as this half of the season wraps up.”

Xie finished as part of a tie for fourth place that also consisted of Seton Hall’s Cassie Pantelas and Harvard captain Anne Cheng. Xie’s 72 moved her 10 spots up the leaderboard on the final day of competition. Senior Nina Fairbairn finished as part of a three-woman tie for 26th out of the 60 entrants with Danielle Fuss of High Point and Towson’s Alexis Hios.

For the third consecutive tournament, freshman walk-on Ji Hae Lee participated on the scoring team for the Crimson. Freshman Chloe Belle Hooton has not been active for Harvard since the opening tournament of the campaign.

Harvard will have more than four months off from tournament play before next returning to the course over spring break in March.

“The break is extra helpful for us this year to come at this time,” Rhoads said. “We will be able to get rested, nurse some of these nagging injuries, and give the players more of a chance to focus on their academics and social aspects of life that they don’t have a ton of time for during the middle of the season.”

—Staff writer Jed Rothstein can be reached at jrothstein@college.harvard.edu.