Women's Golf Slips to Third Place

The Harvard women’s golf team failed to live up to the high expectations it generated with a dominating win last weekend, tying for third place overall at the Princeton Women’s Invitational.

The Crimson, which started yesterday tied for third with Yale with 315 strokes, shot a combined 632 in two rounds, 18 shots more than first-place Princeton and seven shots behind second-place Columbia. Georgetown also finished third after carding the lowest round of Day 2 with a 312.

Senior Jessica Hazlett, who tied for second place with a combined score of 152, led Harvard’s five competing golfers.

Her excellent play provided a silver lining to the overall mood of frustration among the members of the team.

“Jess really paced the team,” junior Ali Bode said.

“All of us know we could have done better this week,” she added.

Hazlett’s first-round score of 75 left her in a tie for second place on Saturday, and she was able to card a relatively consistent score of 77 yesterday despite much tougher wind conditions.

“I would say that my game is pretty well-rounded right now,” Hazlett said.

Yesterday’s high winds made the already long Springdale Golf Club play even longer than it had on Saturday. The wind also made the course’s fairways play narrower, which, combined with the hard, fast greens, put a premium on the precision of longer shots.

The Crimson did, however, deal well with the difficult 10th hole—a dogleg-right with tall trees constricting the fairway 70 yards from a severely undulating green—that plagued it in years past.

Of Harvard’s five golfers competing, Hazlett and junior Jenny Brine, who competed as an individual, did not play last week, underscoring the depth of the team this year.

Weekly lineups are typically determined by internal qualifying matches, which add incentive for all the team’s members to perform well in practice.

Following Hazlett for the Crimson was sophomore Sarah Harvey, whose 159 (78-81) was good enough for 19th place. Junior Emily Balmert matched Harvey’s second-round score, giving her a combined score of 160 and placing her 21st.

Bode, who placed second at last week’s Dartmouth invitational, shot 161 (78-83), which earned her 25th in the individual standings.

Brine, whose scores did not figure into the team’s overall score, shot a 171 (84-87) to round out the Crimson’s totals.

Harvard looks to improve on this week’s performance against a similar field of competitors at the difficult Yale University Golf Course during the Yale Fall Intercollegiate Tournament next week.

The tournament in New Haven is the Crimson’s last tune-up before the ECAC championships in Williamsburg, Va., the following week.

—Staff writer Jonathan B. Steinman can be reached at steinman@fas.harvard.edu.