Women's Golf Takes Third at Harvard Invitational in Florida

Entering its second tournament of the spring season, the Harvard women’s golf team traveled down to Osprey, Fla. to participate in the Ivy-heavy Harvard Invitational. Hosted by the team on the 72-par, three round Heron Course at the Oaks Club, the tournament took place over the course of Saturday and Sunday.

In the field of eight, the Crimson took third place, behind only Princeton, who finished 30 above par, and Boston University, who finished two strokes behind. Over the course of the three rounds the five person Harvard women’s team finished with 905 strokes, 41 strokes over par and 11 above the first place Tigers.

Highlighting for the Crimson was sophomore Michelle Xie. Finishing third place in the Ivy League Championships last year, the sophomore was in a field of her own this weekend, not just leading Harvard but defeating the rest of the field by five strokes and finishing the course under par, the only competitor to complete the feat.

“As the season progresses, I hope to always keep improving,” Xie said. “This weekend was the first official tournament we've had this spring so it definitely pointed out some holes in my game that I hadn't noticed before.”

Xie, seeded number three for the Crimson, started off relatively slow. Finishing the first round at the front of the Harvard group but four above par, the eventual champion would begin the second set of golf in twelfth place. Xie would only get progressively better. A second round score of one below par allowed her to jump 10 spots to second place and a finish of four below in the final round earned the sophomore the gold medal.

“It feels really good to have played well after our long offseason,” Xie said. “With the recent snow, our team hasn't been able to get as much outdoor practice as we would like. This tournament was especially special because our team hosted, and our amazing coaches Kevin [Rhoads] and Naree [Song] helped put the tournament together, on top of coaching us.”

Starting slow wasn’t just a problem for Xie, but the entire top half of the Crimson squad. After the first round of play, Harvard was tied for fifth place. The team’s top golf was Xie—in 12th place—followed by captain Anne Cheng in 15th, and sophomore Anna Zhou in 20th. The second round would be the group’s cumulative best of the weekend with the group of three jumping a total of 30 spots forward.

Cheng leapt so far forward in the second round, up to second place, despite the fact she fell four spots in the third she finished with a solid sixth place performance. The captain completed the invitational with a total of 224, eight over par.

Seeded number one for the Crimson was Zhou who finished the invitation at 16th. She was followed by teammates, senior Nina Fairbank at 28th and freshman Ji Hae Lee at 43rd.

For ancient Eight teams, only Princeton fielded golfers that outdid sixth place finishing Cheng. The Tigers’ number five seed, Amber Wang, left Fla. with a silver medal while teammate and number one seed, Hana Ku took fifth.

With the bronze team medal, Harvard was followed in team rankings by Rollins College and then Pennsylvania, Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown, in that order. Of the four, only Pennsylvania fielded golfers that placed in the top 10, with one taking seventh and two more tying for tenth.

Disadvantaged by the long northern winter and cold temperatures, the team hasn’t had the advantage of a lot outdoor practice. These meets in the south represent an opportunity to get back under the sun and prepare in an environment that will be similar to that which they will be playing under in the Ivy League Championships in a few weeks. With only one more meet between the Crimson and the that event, the team will head to Bloomfield, Conn., next weekend to participate in the another invitational, this time hosted by the Hartford Hawks. The tournament will take place at the Tumble Brook Country Club.

“The tournament this weekend was a great start to our season,” Cheng said. “I'm very happy with where we are as a team, especially since we haven't been outdoors recently. We are always in the continuous process of improving our techniques and our mental game and from here on out, we'll try our best to get in the reps we need to perform the way we want to.”

—Staff writer Cade Palmer can be reached at cade.palmer@thecrimson.com.