Women's Golf Takes Third, Preps For Ivy Championships

In its final test before the Ivy League Championships, the Harvard women’s golf team placed third out of 14 northeastern colleges at the two-day Brown BEAR Invitational in Barrington, R.I., Monday.

The Crimson shot 47-over-par after two rounds to finish behind first-place Yale (+28) and runner-up Seton Hall (+45). St. John’s redshirt junior Jennifer Neville won a playoff over Boston University sophomore Kristyna Pavlickova and Yale sophomore Sun Gyoung Park to place atop the individual leaderboard after finishing round two three-over.

“I’m pretty pleased with our overall performance,” said junior captain Bonnie Hu, who is also a Crimson business editor. “I think, going into Ivy’s, we have a better sense of what areas we need to work on.”

Hu paced Harvard with a nine-over performance to finish in a five-way tie for seventh place among 84 individual entrants. On Sunday, Hu shot three-over to share the lead with the eventual top-three finishers after the first round.

“Bonnie played well for the team [Sunday] and continues her good, strong play,” Crimson coach Kevin Rhoads said. “She’s been dealing with a back injury, but that’s been behaving itself, and she’s managed that well.”

The Crimson turned in an even two days at Rhode Island Country Club, tallying 312 stokes on Sunday and 311 strokes on Monday. On Sunday, Harvard finished three strokes behind Yale and six strokes ahead of Seton Hall, but the Bulldogs and the Pirates surged ahead on Monday, turning in 295- and 303-stroke efforts in the final round.

“Yale definitely played really well today,” Hu said. “Going into Ivy’s, it’s really hard to base things on this tournament. Obviously, it would have been nice to have done better at this tournament, but I’m not too concerned that they beat us.”

Freshman Courtney Hooton finished 11-over to place 13th overall and contributed the Crimson’s best second-round score with a score of four-over on Monday. Classmate Christine Lin finished a stroke behind in a six-way tie for 14th after shooting six-over on both days of competition.

Sophomore Tiffany Lim had four birdies on Monday to finish 18-over in a tie for 29th. Brenna Nelsen, who is also a Crimson sports editor, shot eight-over on Sunday but was forced to withdraw after round one because of a lingering foot injury.

“She’s been keeping [the injury] under control, but it flared up and acted up,” Rhoads said of Nelsen. “She was able to finish the round, but it was pretty severe, and she was in a lot of pain.”

The Crimson could not drop its lowest score on Monday because of Nelsen’s withdrawal. With Hu’s and Nelsen’s ailments, one of Harvard’s main concerns now is to get healthy before the Ivy League Championships begin on April 26 in Bedminster, N.J.

“There’s a little bit of adversity, and we need to be stronger and rise above that,” Rhoads said. “I think we will be up to that challenge.”

The invitational was Harvard’s first tournament in New England since the fall. The recently treated greens proved slow at times on a cold and windy first day of competition. The top five teams improved on their round one scores Monday.

“I think putting was probably our biggest challenge in the first round, but it was for everyone else as well,” Rhoads said.

Harvard’s third-place finish comes a week after an 11th-place showing at the Rebel Intercollegiate at Ole Miss in Oxford, Miss. Hu believes that the team is headed in the right direction.

“I thought our scores didn’t really reflect everyone’s game and where they are at with their game,” Hu said. “I think that there’s definitely room for us to improve because people were playing well, but their scores weren’t necessarily coming together.”

While the Crimson lost to first-place Yale this weekend, Harvard defeated Ivy League rivals Columbia (fourth place, +51), Dartmouth (10th place, +74) and Brown (11th place, +76). In New Jersey, Harvard will look to defend its 2012 team title, while Hu will try to defend her individual title.

“Everyone’s almost there, but no one’s super-sharp right now,” Rhoads said. “That’s going to be our primary goal in the next week, trying to get as sharp as possible as we head into Ivy’s.”

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at mledecky@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @mdledecky.