Women's Golf Captures Fourth Straight Ivy Title by a Stroke

For the fourth consecutive season, the Harvard women’s golf team took the Ivy League Championship, edging Yale by just one stroke over the three-day tournament to come out on top Sunday at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, Pa.

Sophomore Anne Cheng and junior Courtney Hooton led the way for the Crimson, finishing three strokes behind first-place finisher Christine Kim of Brown to tie for fourth on the individual leaderboard. Harvard finished each of its five competitors in the top 20, and the team stayed on top with all-around solid play from top to bottom.

It was a race to the finish for the Crimson and the Bulldogs. After beginning the day eight strokes ahead of Yale and tied with Columbia, Harvard watched its lead dwindle. But the Crimson held on, even as Harvard golfers could only guess the exact score.

“We don’t really pay attention to the score and don’t know where we are at any point in time, so I didn’t really know how close it was,” junior Courtney Hooton said. “I think that in hindsight...every stroke counts. Even if you think you might be out of it or way ahead of it, you have to treat every shot as important as the next and the one before it. It was a learning experience that it came that close.”

Day one was rough for the Crimson, as Cheng shot a nine-over 81 and Hooton a seven-over 79. As a team, Harvard found itself in the bottom half of the seven-team field, nine strokes off the Lions’ pace.

“I didn’t do too well on the first day; it was really windy and the greens were very slippery,” Cheng said. “But then I got the hang of it on the second and third day.”

The Crimson bounced back in round two with the only team score under 300 for the day. All of a sudden, Harvard was back in contention.

“I think between the first and second round there were a couple of different things,” Hooton said. “The first day it was way colder, and also it was very windy, so we were just trying to make sure that we were focusing on trying to do the best we could with the factors that we could control.”

Cheng attributed the change in fortunes at least in part to having gained some more knowledge of course conditions after the first 18 holes of golf.

“I think generally the hardest part was..the greens because the practice area was very different from the actual greens,” Cheng said. “So we focused on our putting on the course to get a feel for the greens because we couldn’t [do so] at any other time…. We also made sure to think about our process and take one shot at a time.”

After a second round 72, Hooton was at the top of the leaderboard, but a third round score of 79 dropped her three spots on day three.

“Of course it’s disappointing—I definitely think I balance that with our team win, which was so exciting, especially for the seniors, and also for the team to break the record of three [championships] in a row,” Hooton said. “It’s a pretty incredible feat.”

Looking ahead to the following Ivy season, the Crimson returns three of the five members of the team that made the trip to the three-day championship tournament.

In Cheng, who won the 2014 Ivy League individual title, Harvard has a leader who should anchor the Crimson’s main five rotation throughout the upcoming two seasons.

“I’ll just keep doing the things I’ve been [doing] and try to stay consistent,” Cheng said.

With the title, Harvard earned an automatic bid to compete at one of four NCAA regional tournaments, which will be held May 7-9. The Crimson will learn its seed on Monday afternoon.

—Staff writer Caleb Y. Lee can be reached at caleb.lee@thecrimson.com.