Women's Golf Finishes 16th among Tough Competition at Stanford Invitational

Looking to close out the fall season on a high note, the Harvard women’s golf team traveled cross-country to take on top-notch competition in the Stanford Invitational hosted by Condoleezza Rice.

By the end of Sunday’s action, Harvard had pieced together an aggregate score of 905 (299-298-308), landing the squad tied for 16th place with No. 17 Oklahoma State, one of the event’s six ranked teams.

Coming into the contest, the Crimson had put together a string of sensational finishes, finding itself near the top of the team leaderboards in nearly all of its matches — second at the Dartmouth Invitational, fourth at the Princeton Invitational, and sixth at the Yale Invitational.

The Stanford Invitational, however, proved to be a different challenge. Of the 17-team field, six ranked in the top 20 nationally with powerhouses No. 2 UCLA and host No. 6 Stanford highlighting the top of the field.

“It’s different from a lot of the other competitions we play just in the quality of the teams that were invited,” first-year Anina Ku said. “We’re just taking all the positives away from it.”

Among individual finishers, the Crimson showed a great deal of consistency, especially from top finishers Ku and senior captain Michelle Xie. Over 54 holes, the pair registered aggregate scores of 223, going (73-74-76) and (75-74-74) respectively over the three days.

Significantly, the duo logged these scores under difficult conditions. Greater yardage, trickier hole design, and faster, drier conditions than many Northeastern courses required a great deal of patience and poise.

“The course was definitely tough, and you just had to really be patient because you could set yourself up nicely a lot of times, and then the putt just wouldn’t fall,” said Ku, who also happened to lead the team with four birdies.

Xie echoed a similar thought, explaining that “just being patient most of the time” was critical as she followed close behind Ku with three birdies of her own.

Rounding out the team’s scoring, senior Anna Zhou and sophomore Jessica Luo also tied each other, posting aggregate scores of 230, and sophomore Belinda Hu followed one stroke behind at 231.

Unranked Southern California surged to the top of the leaderboard, winning the tournament with a dominant score of 837 and upsetting the six ranked teams in the field. No. 6 Stanford, No. 11 Northwestern, No. 14 Washington, and No. 13 Arizona State all performed strongly, finishing in second, third, fourth, and tied for fifth, respectively, with the Sun Devils sitting even with Florida State in the five spot.

No. 2 UCLA had a disappointing weekend, closing out in ninth place. Washington State and Denver finished three strokes ahead of Harvard at plus-50 on the week.

“Facing a more competitive field always makes us more motivated to be better ourselves,” Xie said. “We want to be able to make it to NCAAs, and if we go to regionals, those would be the types of teams that we would be facing.”

Notably, of the five competitors for the Crimson, three were sophomores or younger. Of the nine-member team (four players did not participate at Stanford), Xie and Zhou are the only seniors.

With the fall season now in the books, Xie says that the Crimson’s effort to maintain its playing abilities through the winter will prove crucial to the team’s success in the spring. Until then, Harvard will look forward to its first match of the new season, the Harvard Invitational at Orange County National Golf Center in Orlando, Fla., on March 30-31.