Golf teams look to build off strong freshmen performances

Both men’s and women’s golf look to continue to round into form after an inconsistent fall season. Both teams will look to build on their performances as they look ahead to the Ivy League Championship that will be hosted during the end of April at the Saucon Valley Country Club. The women’s team will look to go one better than last season, when it finished second in the Ivy League Championship, while the men’s team will look to improve on their fourth place finish last season.

Men’s Golf

The fall team saw the men’s team finish in middling form in both the Quechee Club Invitational and MacDonald Cup, but with a strong freshman class, the team will hope to impress in the upcoming spring season.

Especially impressive during the fall season was freshman Eric Mitchell, who marked his second appearance for the Tigers with a fantastic victory at the MacDonald Cup, which was hosted in enemy territory at Yale. It was a great weekend for Mitchell, as he carded two under par over the two days, which helped Princeton to a fourth place finish, twelve strokes behind winner Yale. Mitchell has perhaps been one of Princeton’s top performers, also finishing 19that the Quechee Club Invitational and 15that the Alister MacKenzie Invitational in California. Also playing well during those events were sophomore Alex Dombrowski and freshman Marc Hendrick.

This will be the last season for seniors Joseph D’Amato and Jason Zhou, who hope to leave Princeton golf with a bang and hopefully reclaim the Ivy League Championships for the Tigers, a title they lost out to Columbia last season but won in 2013. With a bounce back season on the cards, the team will need to continue to improve and push for increased consistency during their performances

Women’s Golf

The women’s golf team saw much more success during the fall season than the men’s team, with an exceptionally impressive victory at the Lehigh Invitational, where the team placed first out of nine teams.

The Lehigh Invitational was the highlight of the fall season for the women’s team, with all six players placing in the top 10, and most impressive was the joint top finish from both freshman Tenley Shield and junior Alexandra Wong, with the freshman edging her teammate to bring home the individual trophy, courtesy of a tiebreaker as Shield carded a lower score than Wong. Sophomore Hana Ku rounded out the top three in a dominant performance from the Princeton team.

Although success at Lehigh Invitational was a one-off event, there were encouraging signs throughout the season for the teams, finishing fourthin the Princeton Invitational, fifthin the Nittany Lion Invitational, and 13thin the Mason Rudolph Invitational. Not only were the team performances promising, but there were also impressive individual performances, including Ku’s and Wong’s, who continue to form a formidable one-two punch for the women’s team, often finishing as the team’s lowest scoring players in the competitions.

The fall season also saw a debut performance from Kelly Shon ’14 in a Ladies Professional Golf Associationevent. Princeton’s finest golfer last season finished 11thwhile competing against 120 golfers at the Pure Silk Bahamas LPGA event. Kelly Shon had an award-filled career at Princeton, as she was the second-ever Princeton student to advance to the NCAA Championship during her junior year. She was also a four-time All-Ivy player and a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year.

The women’s team will begin their spring season by travelling to the Moss Creek Golf Club on the weekend of March 21and 22to compete in the Low Country Intercollegiate. This will be the first of four competitions that the team will play in the spring, before the team competes in the Pirate Invitational on April 2and 3, the Brown Invitational 10 days later, and the Ivy League Championship between April 24and 26.

The Ivy League Championship will be held at Saucon Valley Country Club in Pennsylvania, marking the first time that it will be held outside of New Jersey and New York. This course is also where the team had their impressive performance at the Lehigh Invitational, and both the team and Shield hope to repeat their performances to capture the Ivy League Championship for the women’s golf team.