Women’s Golf Tees It Up This Weekend at Princeton

HANOVER, N.H. — The Dartmouth women's golf team is set to play for the first time since February of 2020 when the Big Green tee it up at the Princeton Invitational this weekend, starting Saturday with a shotgun start at 9 a.m. But the group of five to compete on the 6,121-yard, par-72 course at Springdale Golf Club will look quite a bit different than it did 19 months ago.

Only one of the Dartmouth five will have even played in a college tournament, that being junior Samantha Yao. Two years ago as a freshman, she tied for fifth out of 80 golfers by shooting even par (70-74—144) at this event — including a hole-in-one — in just her second event.

Alex Kirk, the Carolyn A. Pelzel '54a Head Coach of Women's Golf, believes he has another competitive team that can vie for the Ivy League championship that just eluded the team the last time it was staged in 2019, despite the turnover and having only six players on the roster.

"We really have some great young talent on this team," Kirk said before the weekend. "We won't have our only senior (Kristen Chen) this fall, but our new players will get plenty of opportunities to get out on the course and show what they can do. And from what I've seen in practice, I think we will surprise people around the league."

Chen was starting to come into her own when the pandemic shut down the 2019-20 season. In four tournaments that year, the California native posted a 76.60 stroke average, earning the team's most improved award. She also performed well at the Princeton Invitational, tying for 18th at 5-over par.

A pair of sophomores, Katherine Sung and Penelope Tir, will finally get the chance to show off their skills on the links this weekend. Sung was the 2019 American Junior Golf Association UHY Albany Junior Champion and led her Palo Alto High team to the state title, becoming the first team from Northern California to win it all since its inception in 2004. Tir, meanwhile, won the state title as a junior in 2017-18 to lead her New Trier (Ill.) squad to the championship by 10 strokes, plus was named all-conference in each of her four years in high school.

As for the freshman duo, Claire Xu and Mari Caldwell also have some impressive honors. Xu helped her team to a third-place finish at the Washington 4A State Championship as a sophomore, placing third herself, then took sixth the following year. She also won the Washington Junior Golf Association State Championship in 2014 and the WJGA Western Open in 2018. Caldwell is one of just 12 First Tee Scholars from the Class of 2021, and she qualified for the New Mexico 5A State Championship as an individual when just a sophomore. As a senior, she qualified again and placed 16th overall.

Dartmouth will tee off on holes 11-15 tomorrow morning with Harvard and St. John's as playing partners. The other teams in the field will consist of Albany, Columbia, Fairleigh Dickinson, Georgetown, Penn, Rollins College, Seton Hall and Yale, as well as the host Tigers.

Schedules