A Summer Sharper: Previewing Harvard Men’s Golf, The Reigning Ivy Champion

Greens pristinely mowed, irons polished and shined, the trophy cabinet dusted off, and the Harvard men’s golf team standing atop the Ivy League for the first time since 2017.

While many squads bid farewell to their seniors, elect new captains, and welcome freshmen, Harvard faced a much different, simpler reality.

The Crimson graduated no seniors, ushered in the second year of junior William Ma’s captaincy, and added freshman Alex Zhang to Harvard’s youthful roster, the youngest in the Ivy League last season.

A. Zhang joins a record-breaking and state-of-the-art program in Cambridge, which is coming off its best-ever NCAA Regionals finish and its first full season practicing at Harvard’s revamped year-round indoor facility in Allston, Mass.

Joining the Crimson as its only Canadian golfer, A. Zhang holds gold medals in both the 2023 Canadian Junior Boys Championship and Canadian Juvenile Boys Championship, and is only the 11th golfer in Canadian history to earn both titles.

Not only did the rookie stand atop the Canadian youth golf world in 2023, but A. Zhang also earned a career-best American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) Rolex Ranking of 23rd, placing himself into an elite tier of young golfers.

Although Harvard carries a much larger roster than the four or five starting spots allotted at each tournament, sophomore Reese Jensen showed how golfers outside the starting lineup can still make tremendous progress in their golf ability.

In his second competition as a Harvard golfer, Jensen secured a runner-up finish at the Georgetown Intercollegiate in Westfield, N.J., as the Crimson went on to earn second place as a team, its best result of the fall season.

Despite seldom headlining Harvard’s starters, Jensen was uniquely successful as he placed first in the Auburndale, Mass., US Open local qualifier tournament. Jensen’s best results came despite difficult weather, including a nor’easter in Westfield and a windy, freezing April day in Auburndale.

Whether Jensen will fit into Harvard’s head coach Kevin Rhoads’s roster for 2026-2027 is still to be known, but if last season is any indication for this year, expect the sophomore to be taking the initiative to improve his game day-after-day.

Coach Rhoads, meanwhile, enters the season as the reigning Ivy League Men’s Golf Coach of the Year, in what will be his 15th year coaching the men’s team.

Rhoads began his Harvard coaching career in 2004 as head coach of the women’s team, spending 19 seasons with them and 11 seasons coaching both the men’s and women’s teams.

During his time in Cambridge, Rhoads has earned three Ivy Championships with the men’s team and eight with the women’s, and has been named Ivy Coach of the Year in all three championship seasons for the men and once in 2016 with the women’s team.

With another year of leadership from key upperclassmen Ma and senior Jonathan Hartono, Rhoads has a prime opportunity to vie for his second back-to-back conference championship.

Hartono, like Jensen, often didn’t see the course as a starter for the Crimson last season, but having traveled with the squad frequently over the past three years, he’s been the glue between two eras of Harvard golf.

Last spring, Hartono emphasized how the seniors he joined in 2023-2024 worked very hard for individual and professional goals, but that the current team is particularly driven.

Having earned Harvard’s all-time best NCAA regional finish just a few days after that interview, it was clear that the eldest member of the squad rightly assessed the hunger for success amongst his underclassmen peers.

While age certainly isn’t the most pivotal factor in success on the course – take, for example, the 35-time course champion Donna Warner from Rhode Island, who just won her most recent championship at 79 years old – it is definitely a component of success at the collegiate level.

With A. Zhang as Harvard’s only new golfer and Hartono as its only senior, the rest of the Crimson’s roster is in the midst of their careers and fully adjusted to academic and collegiate life.

Ma, junior Barry Zhang, and junior Ieuan Jones all led Harvard in 2025-26 and are poised to continue their efficiency and success for the Crimson.

B. Zhang is entering the fall as the reigning individual Ivy Champion after a thrilling – yes, golf can be thrilling – Round Three in the Ivy Championships.

Harvard bested Princeton by just one stroke as a team while B. Zhang outlasted the Tigers’ then-sophomore Reed Greyserman for the playoff, epitomizing the squad’s ability to compete down to the wire.

B. Zhang’s success came as no surprise given his dominance in tournaments throughout the season, notably including his 13th-place finish in the stacked field at the Cutter Creek Intercollegiate.

B. Zhang’s spring campaign had one more chapter, as he earned fourth at the NCAA Regional tournament. The junior recorded Harvard’s all-time best placement for an individual, falling only three strokes behind the national qualifying score of -14 in Athens, Ga.

Although looking out over the expanse of a 500-yard par five on a cloudy, chilly New England morning may feel incredibly isolating or individual, Harvard’s golfers have time and time again emphasized how supported and unified they feel out on the course.

The Crimson’s unity largely traces to the consistency and determination of its captain, Ma, who, as a consistent starter, helped guide Harvard’s 2026 regional team with his T14 (-5) result in Georgia, the third-best NCAA regional finish in school history.

Ma’s best tournament result in 2026 came at the Princeton Invitational, where both he and then-freshman Morgan Riley slotted hole-in-ones. Ma finished in a tie for second (E), and Riley tied for fourth place (+1) as the Crimson earned first place among a field including all of its Ivy League foes.

Both Ma and Jones also rounded out the top five of the 2026 Ivy Championship individual leaderboard, as Jones placed fourth and Ma fifth, leaving Harvard golfers with three of the top five spots.

With an Ivy Championship to defend, the Crimson will begin its 2026-27 campaign with A. Zhang and a roster of returners in Verona, N.Y., to compete in the Red Bandanna Invitational hosted by Boston College.

—Staff writer Leo P. Petropoulos can be reached at [email protected].