Women's Golf Ready for Ivy League Championship

HANOVER, N.H. — Having finished fifth at the Ivy League Championship each of the last two years, the Dartmouth women's golf team is aiming to climb higher in the standings and vie for the title when the conference meets at The Ridge at Back Brook in Ringoes, New Jersey on April 19-21.

The Big Green will have to contend with the favorites, Princeton and Harvard, which tied atop the leaderboard at last year's event. The Tigers won the crown, defeating the Crimson in a two-hole playoff. Both teams are averaging a score of less than 13 strokes against par per round with Dartmouth in the middle of the Ancient Eight schools at 20.12.

But the Green have played solid golf this spring, placing fifth of nine at one event in Florida and tied for fourth of eight at the Harvard Invitational, also in Florida.

The Carolyn A. Pelzel 1954a Head Coach of Women's Golf, Alex Kirk, has no doubt that his players have the potential to push their way toward the top of the board this weekend. They have been trending up in recent years with those fifth-place finishes their best since the 2004 team placed third.

"Catharine Roddy is always playing her best golf at the end of year, as she has proven by earning All-Ivy honors the last two years," Kirk said. "Our stroke leader is a freshman in Kaitlyn Lees, and I think her best is still to come. And we have experience at the championship with Maddie Nelson and Moon Cheong, while Kristen Chen has come on this spring as well. I am excited to see how we perform this weekend."

Roddy, a co-captain, saw her scoring suffer last fall when she played through an illness, but has shown no signs of that affecting her play this spring with top-20 finishes the last two tournaments. A first-team All-Ivy performer as a sophomore, she earned second-team honors last year to become the first Big Green golfer to make one of the All-Ivy teams twice in 18 years.

Lees and Cheong have been the most consistent golfers for Dartmouth throughout the year and boast the team's top two stroke averages at 76.76 and 77.12, respectively. Lees burst onto the collegiate scene by tying for ninth out of 81 golfers in her first tournament, and at the Harvard Invitational at the end of March tied for 12 out of 48. Cheong also had a top-10 finish, tying for seventh out of 45 in the first spring tournament and has continued to play well leading into the championship.

Junior Maddie Nelson missed the fall season after tying for 13th at last year's championship but has come on strong with her play at the match-play event two weeks ago. She halved her first showdown with a Princeton golfer before winning her second against Brown, 1 up. Finally, she helped Dartmouth sweep Wagner with a convincing 6 and 5 victory.

Joining Lees as a first-year competing at the championship is Chen. She has played in every tournament during the season, producing a 78.65 stroke average and has been a steady performer throughout.

The tournament begins on the par-72, 6,042-yard course on Friday at 9 a.m. Saturday's second round will tee off at 11 a.m. with Sunday's final round starting at 9 a.m., weather permitting. Fans can keep up with the tournament via the live scoring at golfstat.com.

Schedules