Women's Golf Clinches Championship

Wrapping up the regular season, the Harvard women’s golf trip traveled a few hours south to the Stanwich Club in Greenwich, CT to compete in the Ivy League Championships. By the time the weekend was over, the Crimson was hoisting the championship trophy for the fifth consecutive year.

“It’s always nice to have one championship because then you know you can do it,” Harvard coach Kevin Rhoads said. “But each year brings with it new personnel and obstacles. To be able to win multiple really shows the focus the team has and how they have never become complacent.”

The tournament featured one 18-hole round of play each day from Friday through Sunday. The 6,094 yard Stanwich Club played at par 73 for the weekend. The course features 10 holes where water is in play.

The Crimson opened play strong, combining for a team score of 302 on day one, eight strokes ahead of its nearest competitor. Despite being outshot by Princeton by a margin of two on Saturday, Harvard never lost the top spot on the leaderboard.

A round three 305 further extended the lead, cementing a Crimson finish at +43, 13 shots in front of the second-place Tigers. Yale finished the tournament in third, 29 strokes off the Crimson pace.

Harvard’s 302 and 305 were the two lowest round scores for any school in the tournament.

The Crimson was particularly dominant on par 5 holes, shooting +5 overall. That was 11 shots better than Columbia, who ranked second best in that category.

By virtue of winning, Harvard earned a trip to NCAA Regionals in May.

“In order to get over the hump and make Nationals we definitely need to keep sharpening the different aspect of our game,” Harvard captain Christine Lin said. “We’ve been close to advancing to Nationals in the past, hopefully we can accomplish that goal this year.”

On the individual side, junior Anne Cheng placed second at seven over par, just one shot behind Yale’s Jennifer Peng. Peng’s round one score of 72 was the only under par performance of any player on the course during the tournament.

Just two shots below Cheng was freshman teammate Michelle Xie, who took third.

Senior Christine Lin’s 232 was good enough for a tie for sixth place, matching Princeton’s Amber Wang. Despite coming down with food poisoning Friday night, freshman Anna Zhou was only one shot behind, ending play in eighth. Senior Courtney Hooton also competed for Harvard on the weekend.

Rounding out the top five on the individual leaderboard were Hana Ku of Princeton and Christine Kim of Brown. Both players finished in a tie for fourth at +12.

“I feel like every player on our team has the ability to help us out at any time,” Lin said. “We are all giving it our all on every hole, we don’t crack under pressure and to me that’s one of the strongest traits of this team.”

Columbia, Brown, Penn, and Dartmouth placed fifth through eighth at the event, respectively.

Harvard will be assigned to one of four regional tournaments. Those will be taking place in Stanford, Calif., Bryan, Texas, Baton Rouge, La., and Shoal Creek, Ala. on May 5-7.

“I’m very excited for this year’s team and our chances to go even further,” Rhoads said. “It’s not always an apples to apples comparison going against top-tier programs outside the Ivy League. But one area we can match up well for sure is our preparation; this is a very strong team.”

The Crimson will try to balance preparation for regionals with finals and the ending of the academic year.

“Obviously, it’s not ideal for us to have regionals scheduled in the middle of finals week,” Rhoads said. “Some of the other programs we’ll be up against have already had their terms end. That said, coming so close to Nationals the last few years shows we’re up for the challenge.”

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