“[Balancing golf] taught me time management and how to be more independent,” Liu explains. “So, the transition here is not as difficult as it would be had I not been at IMG.”
Hopefully, Hu will likewise find that her high school experiences have prepared her well for the rigors of college life.
From her freshman year onward, Hu dedicated much of her free time to the sport.
“It took up a lot of time because I practiced every day after school and played on weekends,” she says. “There wasn’t much time for extracurriculars.”
But clearly, this busy schedule did little to deter Hu. In 2008, Hu was part of an eight-person team representing the US in the US-China Junior Championship in Beijing. The following year, the Crimson athlete collected two AJGA victories as well as the women’s championship trophy at the San Francisco City Championship.
To wrap up her high school career, Hu, like Liu, twice nabbed HP Junior Academic All-American honors, and she graduated valedictorian from Mission San Jose High School. Her ranking within the class of 2010 on the National Junior Golf Scoreboard? Ninth in the country.
Clearly, then, Hu and Liu’s arrival marks no small addition to the men’s and women’s golf teams. Both teams and their coaching staff have, consequently, been “phenomenal” in welcoming the new freshmen to the squads and showing them the ropes.
Already, in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Tri-Meet this past weekend, Liu proved that he’s ready for some collegiate competition. He captured a team-best two victories in the Crimson’s second-place finish.
“Because I’ve played so many events over my high school career, I treated it like any other event,” Liu says. “I don’t worry about my opponents.”
Hu, likewise, seems unaffected by the idea of new competition. With her first taste of college-level competition arriving this Saturday at the Princeton Invitational, she seems calm and ready.
“I came here,” she says, “to play on a team.”
With this team emphasis in mind, hopefully, these budding stars will help their squads claim the Ancient Eight crown for Harvard golf.
—Staff writer Molly E. Kelly can be reached at mkelly@college.harvard.edu.