W. Golf Finishes Third at Bucknell

Drop the mercury below 40 degrees. Let the skies open and the rain come down in sheets. Toss in a few course repairs, lengthen the par-4s, move the tees back to the tips and what do you do?

If you are a member of the Harvard women’s golf team, it means you turn your game up a notch and leave two-thirds of the field in dust.

“Spring golf is like that,” sophomore J.J. Kang said. “But everyone plays in the same weather—it’s even for the whole field. You just have to suck it up.”

That is exactly what the Crimson did this past weekend at the Bucknell Spring Classic in Lewisburg, Pa.

Harvard finished third in the 14 team field and all five Crimson golfers finished in the top 25.

Freshman Jennifer Cronan led the way with scores of 79-78-157 and finished in second.

“Jen had a great weekend,” said junior Kathryn Kuchefski. “Her game really came together over spring break and she put together two really solid rounds of golf.”

Cronan finished three shots back of tournament winner Kristen Obush from Cleveland State. Obush led Cronan by just a stroke after Saturday but fired a weekend-low 76 on Sunday to take the title.

“As a freshman coming in from high school, college golf can be a frustrating experience,” Kuchefski said. “You expect a lot of yourself and the transition can be difficult. It was just great to see Jen play so well. She was hitting the ball really solidly all weekend.”

Sophomore Carrie Baizer and Kuchefski finished tied in a tie for 15th, eight strokes back of Cronan for a two-day total of 165. Both golfers shot very low on Saturday before slipping back in the field a little through the second eighteen. Baizer fired scores of 80-85, while Kuchefski posted marks of 81-84.

Finishing in 19th place, Kang struggled slightly on Saturday to an 87 before rebounding with an 82 to close out the 36-hole tournament with a score of 169.

“The team was in a really good position after the first round,” Kang said. “But we needed to make up ground to win, so I put extra concentration on the course the second day. It was more motivation because I wanted to contribute.”

The lowest four rounds out of five each day are counted towards the team’s score. With an 87 on Saturday, Kang’s score was the highest among the five Crimson golfers and not counted towards the team tally.

If this served as extra motivation for Kang, as she claims, then it certainly worked. Kang’s 82 on Sunday was Harvard’s second lowest score on the day and just four shots back of team leader Cronan.

Junior captain Merry Chiampa finished two shots back of Kang in 25th place with very consistent scores of 85-86-171.

“In the fall, everyone had a few troubles,” Kuchefski said. “Our scores fluctuated a lot, so it was good for everyone to be very consistent.”

Harvard was in third place after Saturday’s rounds with a team score of 325, five strokes back of leader St. Francis and two behind second place Bucknell. With another solid score of 329 on Sunday, the Crimson caught both St. Francis and Bucknell, who struggled to totals of 337 and 338, respectively, on the second day.

But Brown, just one shot back of Harvard after Saturday, put in another very consistent round to finish 326-325-651 and take the tournament crown. Hard charging Long Island turned in a tournament-low single-day score of 320 on Sunday to leap the Crimson for second place and finish at 652, one shot back of the Bears and two ahead of Harvard.

“It was a great tournament for us,” Kuchefski said. “Brown usually finishes a lot more than three strokes ahead of us. It’s usually more like eight or ten, and we were even beating them after the first day.”

Kang was also pleased but saw room for improvement as well.

“Overall I was very happy,” Kang said. “We didn’t play our best, but we played well. That’s encouraging because it gives us somewhere to go from here.”

The tough course conditions also lowered most golfers’ scores.

“It was freezing cold,” Kuchefski said. “It didn’t go above 40 degrees all weekend. And in the cold weather, the ball doesn’t go as far. You lose distance and with the rain, you also don’t get any role, so you lose even more distance.”

Add that to a lengthened set of par-4s and a number of competitors had trouble reaching some greens in regulation.

“One of the par-4s on the course was under construction and they shortened it to a par-3,” Kuchefski said. “In order to meet the NCAA minimum length for a course, they had to lengthen all the other par-4s, so we were playing from the tips or championship tees on those holes.”

The course played at 5,830 yards with the modifications, just meeting the NCAA minimum of 5,800 yards.

The change was particularly difficult for Kuchefski. She is one of the shortest hitters on the team, so her 15th-place finish was all the more impressive considering the combination of cold, rain and lengthened par-4s.

Harvard hosts Brown at The Country Club this coming weekend in preparation for the Ivy Championships which are just a little over two weeks away.

—Staff writer Timothy Jackson can be reached at jackson2@fas.harvard.edu.