Spring Season Tees Off on Sunday for the Women

MELBOURNE, Fla. — The Dartmouth women's golf team is escaping the snowy Northeast for a balmier climate to kick off the spring season at the Columbia Classic at the Doran Golf Club in Melbourne, Florida. The event hosted by Columbia University begins on Sunday morning with two rounds of play followed by the third and final round on Monday morning.

Alex Kirk, the Carolyn A. Pelzel '54a Head Coach of Women's Golf, is looking forward to getting his team back on the links, and with good reason. The Big Green showed improvement throughout the fall with a young roster with only one player with any collegiate experience. By the end of the fall, Dartmouth finished third in the 11-team field at the SHU Fall Invitational despite playing a woman short. And though junior Samantha Yao will not be available for the first two events while away from campus for the winter term, senior Kristen Chen returns to the fold to provide some veteran leadership.

"So far, we have been hitting balls in our simulator, but getting outside and seeing the ball fly will be good for everyone on the team," Kirk said. "We may not have the biggest roster this year, but it is loaded with quality players. This first tournament will be terrific test for us because there are some really good teams here. It is a chance to elevate our play even further against stiff competition."

Kirk might have undersold that "stiff competition" this weekend with no fewer than eight teams that are ranked in the top 50 nationally by Golfweek — Oklahoma State (No. 2), Texas Tech (25), Virginia Tech (26), Georgia (29), Illinois (32), Purdue (36), Iowa State (39) and Northwestern (49) — along with Albany, Boston University and Tulsa, as well as a trio of other Ivies (host Columbia, Princeton and Yale).

Sophomore Katherine Sung quickly established herself as the Big Green's top player in the fall, finishing third in two of the three fall tournaments while posting a team-best 73.0 stroke average. Yao was close on her heels, however, placing in the top 15 in all three events, including tying for fifth in the final tournament, while producing a stroke average of 74.75. Dartmouth will be happy to have her back in the fold on the spring trip in mid-March.

Chen, meanwhile, will be playing for the Green for the first time in almost exactly two years, having last competed at the FAU Winter Warm-up in February of 2020. In her sophomore year, she dropped two strokes from her freshman year to 76.6 in 10 rounds, giving Dartmouth another reliable weapon on the course.

Both sophomore Penelope Tir and freshman Claire Xu showed promise in the fall with each finishing in the top half of the field in two of their first three collegiate tournaments. Tir's best showing was a tie for 16th at SHU while Xu's was a tie for 23rd at the Yale Invitational. Kirk knows they are capable of shaving strokes from their game and expects them to continue to improve throughout the spring heading into the Ivy League Championship, scheduled for April 22-24.

In need of some depth, Kirk has added walk-on senior Emilia Hoppe to the roster, and she will get her first opportunity to play this weekend as well. She was a four-sport athlete in high school in Minnesota, competing in cross country, Nordic skiing and track and field as well.

Schedules