The Ivy League has held a women's golf championship for four years. Yale has won three times, Princeton once.
Of the four individual champions, two have come from Princeton and two from Yale.
The first Ivy individual champion, Princeton's Mary Moan '97, is now the head coach at Yale.
Yes, more than two teams do have women's golf teams, it just doesn't seem that way.
"As always, it's going to be another shootout between us and Yale," senior Julia Allison said. "As usual, they're our main competition."
Princeton, however, looks poised to regain the title it last won in 1999. In that tournament Allison took home medalist honors with a 160 at Bethpage Golf Course in New York beating out Yale's Sarah Seo by a stroke.
Last year, with Allison on the sidelines, Seo beat Tiger senior Adrienne Gill in a playoff for the Ivy individual title.
Now the Tigers return not only Gill, Allison and fellow senior Natalie Christensen to take on the potent Yale squad, but also will bring a new weapon — freshman Esty Dwek — to face the Elis and the rest of the Ivy League.
"Esty's been incredible for us so far this season," Allison said.
Dwek has been one of the keys for the Tigers this season and could give Princeton the edge over the Elis in what traditionally has been a hard-fought contest.
Two weeks ago at the William & Mary Invitational, the freshman fired a two-round total of 150 to finish in second place. At that tournament, Princeton outdueled Yale by four strokes, 646-650.
Princeton also boasts a win over Yale two weekends ago at the James Madison Invitational, where the Tigers finished 13 strokes ahead of Yale — even without the services of Dwek.
"We've been able to beat them a few times this year and none of us have been playing our best," Allison said. "I think we feel pretty confident going into the weekend."
The tournament will be taking place at Forest Gate Country Club in Jamesburg, a hilly, well-bunkered layout that will test the players.
At 5,800 yards, the course will not be particularly long; however, players are expecting to see a number of sidehill lies and shots to elevated targets that will make the play difficult.
"I see the course as being an advantage to us, because even the girls [playing for Princeton] who aren't the longest hitters have really good short games," Allison said.
Princeton will also gain the advantage of having three of its five players finally free of thesis stress. While careful not to blame any poor play on the stress of senior year, the players are relieved at being able to pay full attention to their golf games.
"Earlier in the year I would go out on the golf course and it would be strange since I thought I should still be in a library," Allison said. "Now it's fun to get out and play again."
While Yale will be the main competition for the Tigers, the other women's golf programs in the Ivy League have been steadily progressing and will begin to test the dominance of the top two in future years.
Brown in particular has developed a program that looks ready to burst onto the scene after shooting a 626 at the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament this past weekend to finish fourth. While ECACs was played at a far easier course than the teams will face this weekend, posting scores this low makes Brown a candidate for an upset.
While the other four teams competing will attempt to give the Elis and Tigers a run come Sunday afternoon, the winner will probably be decided when the final Tiger golfer marches down the 18th fairway with her Eli counterpart, as the teams battle for the most important tournament in the Ivy season.
"We're pretty confident going into the tournament," Allison said. "But it just comes down to who puts up the best scores on the board."
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