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The Harvard Women’s Golf team headed out to Princeton, N.J. this past weekend to face 12 teams in its second bout of the year at the Princeton Invitational. Once scores were tallied and the second tournament of the fall season was said and done, the Crimson marked down a seventh overall finish with a total score of 57 over par. Among the six Ivy League teams in attendance, Harvard placed fifth.

In the lead up to competition play for the 2024-2025 season, the Harvard women’s golf team settled into its new form after a triplet of departures following the end of the previous season. With Isabella Gomez ’24 and Meiyi Yan ’24 graduating from the College and the absence of Charissa Shang ’26 going into the year, the Crimson has collected new talent in the form of freshman teammates Michelle Liu, Lucy Yuan, and Vanessa Zhang. These incoming athletes started their careers off strong; each one is rated in the top 20 of their graduating year by The Junior Golf Scoreboard. Now, under one unified name, they seek to showcase their abilities as members of the Crimson.

Already, the updates to the roster and the injection of new talent have begun to pay off for the Crimson. In its first tournament of the year two weekends ago, the team hit the course with a newfound intensity to prove itself following the departure of its accomplished senior class. The team did just that, shaking off the rust to score a second place overall finish at its first tournament of the season, the Penn State Nittany Lion Invitational hosted in State County, Penn. at Penn States’ own Penn State Blue Course.

Despite stiff competition at its first showing of the year, Harvard standouts junior Iris Wang and freshman Zhang each put up top-10 finishes on the course, posting individual tournament scores of 221 (+5), setting the tone for the Crimson’s decisive weekend of play. The strong spark from this mid-September invitational looked to also set the tone for the upcoming year, with the Crimson placing second among the four Ivy League schools present, falling behind only Princeton during the weekend of competition.

Going into this past weekend, Princeton would be the team to beat. Only this time, Harvard would need to post a lower score than the Tigers on their home course. With all eyes on the green recruits, especially on Zhang following her impressive performance at the Penn State Invitational, the team traveled once again to fight for glory at the Princeton Invitational at Springdale Golf Club.

The team crossed the border into the Garden State hot off the presses from a strong performance, although this time with a bigger chip on its shoulder to prove itself against its Ancient Eight foes. Falling short of glory against just Princeton last weekend, the squad would have the difficult task of overcoming five other Ivy League schools, a battle which would ultimately prove too much for Head Coach Fred Schernecker’s ’89 team.

The team had a solid start on day one, producing quality results. Identical +2 rounds from Yuan and Wang gave the Crimson an initial burst and helped the team finish with an overall score of +15, and end the initial day of competition tied for third place through round one. The highlight of the day came from Wang’s three birdies which helped her to score one of the team’s best individual totals for the first round.

After beginning the tournament with an explosive performance and a glimmer of hope at a podium finish, the day took a turn that cost the Crimson its spot in the top three. Yuan shot 76 (+5) and fellow freshman Zhang posted a 77 (+6). Harvard ended up finishing day one of the tournament in eighth place, five positions lower than how it entered into the second round, and dropping out of hope of a medal finish without a heroic lift from the team in round three.

“We had to play in constant rainy and windy conditions for nine hours straight on Saturday. I had never played in those conditions for that long ever, so staying patient and not getting ahead of myself definitely helped me,” Wang said. “Due to several injuries on the team, we only had five players which placed us at a disadvantage compared to other teams. I really tried to help framing this in the right way and we all were proud of ourselves for fighting through tough conditions.”

Despite the bumps along the way, the Crimson recovered for its final round of play. A bounce-back performance from Yuan led the team to its best single-round performance of the weekend at 14 over par.

Yuan rose to the occasion and led the team with her first career top-10 score, finishing eighth individually with a score of +6 across the entire tournament. In her final round of 18, Lucy Yuan tallied a -1 which helped Harvard take a late, tiebreaking lead over seventh-ranked Seton Hall. Her performance was particularly stunning given the flock of seven birdies that she collected over the three rounds, a team best for the competition.

Across the rest of the Crimson, Wang finished tied for 17th at 14 over par with rounds of 73, 80, and 74. Zhang concluded the tournament tied for 23rd, posting a final score of 16-over-par across the three rounds. Bridget Ma and Lauren Wong rounded out the lineup, with Ma finishing at 24-over-par and Wong at 28-over-par.

The Crimson will continue to look to improve on its early-season performance as it heads to Wallingford, CT for the Quinnipiac Classic on Oct. 14.

—Staff writer Jack Anderson can be reached at jack.anderson@thecrimson.com

—Staff writer Hugo Nunez can be reached at hugo.nunez@thecrimson.com