Shon captures individual Ivy title, Tigers finish second

For junior Kelly Shon, the end of this year’s golf season was a mix of old and new. On Tuesday it was announced that for the third consecutive year, Shon had been selected to play in an NCAA Regional golf championship. While the tournament will be nothing unfamiliar for Shon, the announcement was preceded by something entirely new.

On Sunday at Trump National in Bedminster, N.J., Shon won her first ever Ivy League individual championship and, with the victory, was named the Ivy League Player of the Year, just the second Princeton women’s golfer to win the honor.  

Shon narrowly bested the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, Harvard’s Christine Lin, in a one-hole playoff to finish first on the individual scoreboard at two over. Her performance has markedly improved from previous years — as a freshman she tied for fifth, and last year, she took seventh. Shon is the ninth Tiger to win the individual title since 1997, when the Ivy Championship first began, and is the first to win since Susannah Aboff ’09 in her senior season in 2009.

As a whole, the squad put up an impressive showing, barely missing the top spot in what was the closest margin of loss in a women’s Ivy League golf championship since 1998. After 54 holes and more than 900 shots, Harvard finished the tournament at 45 over, while Princeton trailed behind by just one at 46 over. The Tigers had entered day three trailing the Crimson by four shots, but with a 13 over Sunday from Princeton and a 16 over from Harvard, the squad just missed edging its way into the lead. Princeton finished twenty shots ahead of third-place Yale and 34 in front of Columbia.

Each of Princeton’s golfers finished in the top 20, with senior Anna Jang earning second team All-Ivy for her 10th place finish at 17 over. Rookie Sydney Kersten followed just one shot behind to finish 11th, and classmate Alexandra Wong tied for 14th at 21 over. Senior Tiffany Dong rounded out the squad at 26 over, tying for 18th.

Shon, who was also named first-team All-Ivy selection, is one of six individual golfers to earn a bid to the East Regional that will be hosted by Auburn from May 9-11. In order to qualify for the NCAA Championship, held in late May, Shon must place within the top two individual spots on the leaderboard; the spots do not count individual leaders that are at the Regional championship as part of a team that places in the top eight.

In 2011, as a freshman in her first year competing, Shon finished 52nd. A year later, as a sophomore, she moved up on the leaderboard to 29th of 126 players. Now Shon will look to be the first Princeton player since Mary Moan ’97 to move on to the NCAA Championship.