Harvard Secures Ivy Title As Team

As a reporter, I’ve learned that all coaches and players like to give you the whole “it was a team effort” speech.

They like to throw out words like “chemistry,” “teamwork,” and “hard work.”

Win or lose, they want to make clear that they do it as a team.

So it came as no surprise when, after the Harvard women’s golf team won the Ivy League championship last weekend, coach Kevin Rhoads stressed the fact that the victory could be attributed to his entire squad.

“Golf is usually such an individual sport where you’re only responsible for yourself, but this is one time where having a close team, and having it be so deep and balanced, has made all the difference in the world,” Rhoads reflected. “Even those who didn’t travel this week pushed those who did qualify to a level where we could become champions. This is truly a team title.”

At first glance the quote appears almost ludicrous.

After all, this is golf we’re talking about!

It’s a sport where every player competes individually.

It’s hard to push the whole “the-team-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts” line when the team score literally is the sum of the individual scores.

But if you look more closely, the championship really was an incredible team effort. All five Crimson competitors finished in the top 15 overall.

Not one other team had all of its players break into even the top-20.

The way the scoring works at the Ivy League championships is that the team score each round is made up of the best four individual scores from each squad; that is, each round every team drops its highest (and therefore worst) score.

So depth does make a major difference.

Multiple teams had to drop the same player’s score each round.

Not so for Harvard, which had all five of its players directly contribute to the win.

In fact, had the Crimson dropped its second-worst score each round instead, it still would have won the tournament by three strokes.

Not only does this display the dominance with which Harvard took home its first ever Ivy crown, but it also highlights just how strong the team is from top to bottom.

Junior Emily Balmert and sophomore Claire Sheldon finished second and third, respectively, but the victory was certainly not a case of just a couple of players carrying the team.

Princeton junior Susannah Aboff won the individual title by a whopping 11 strokes.

But the second Tigers competitor finished +12, placing her behind Balmert, Sheldon, and senior captain Jessica Hazlett—who finished in fifth—and just one stroke ahead of junior Ali Bode.

Heading into the final round at the championships, the Crimson players found themselves up 10 strokes, and hoping to avoid a last-day choke.

A good start was vital to calm the nerves. Sophomore Sarah Harvey came out with three straight birdies and Harvard rolled to its historic victory.

Throughout the season, the Crimson players have consistently finished in various orders, with no player always at the top or bottom of the team standings.

In describing the victory as a “team title,” though, Rhoads was not only referring to talent, but also to the closeness of the players.

Harvard has about as much team spirit as it does depth.

Despite the individual nature of golf, the players consistently found ways to support one another.

This support is especially important given the massive mental aspect of the game.

The most symbolic moment of the tournament came when Hazlett shot a hole-in-one on the second to last hole of the first day.

While she could not see the ball roll in, she knew what had happened from her teammates’ cheers.

The hole-in-one helped the Crimson to a second-round score of even-par 288—the lowest in the history of the program.

It is easy to understand why the whole “team effort” speech is common practice.

Teamwork is ingrained into our conception of how sports are supposed to be played.

We try to build chemistry.

We are taught to slap the free-throw shooter’s hand regardless of whether or not he hits the free-throw.

We are taught to wish our replacement good luck, even though it means we are headed to the bench.

We are taught to put the team ahead of ourselves.

And we do this—we stress teamwork—because teamwork wins.

Just ask the Harvard women’s golf team.

—Staff writer Jay M. Cohen can be reached at jaycohen@fas.harvard.edu.