Season Opens at Princeton Invitational This Weekend

HANOVER, N.H. — Alex Kirk has a problem, but one that he does not mind having.

Last year, Dartmouth's Carolyn A. Pelzel '54a Head Coach of Women's Golf had trouble just filling out his five-woman lineup most weekends, though he still managed to guide the Big Green to tie for fourth at the Ivy League Championship. Dartmouth finished with a team score of 902 (+38), its lowest total ever at the conference championship, and the team's 10-stroke deficit to the champion was the second-closest the Green ever had come to taking the title. By the end of the season, Dartmouth enjoyed its best national ranking among all the women's programs, just beating Kirk's 2019-20 squad.

This season, Kirk returns four golfers that had the best stroke averages last season, while adding more talent in his freshman class. Now he has to figure out which talented players will contribute to the team score every tournament while either leaving others behind or taking them along to play as individuals.

Leading the way is junior Katherine Sung, an All-Ivy League First Team member last year who led Dartmouth with a 75.3 stroke average, the lowest in team history. She finished among the top three in five of the eight tournaments last year, including each of the last three outings, while sinking 60 birdies, 18 more than any Big Green golfer ever. The native of Palo Alto, California, set a program record for a low round (2-under 69) and a three-round tournament (even par), plus tied for first at the Prospect Bay Intercollegiate right before tying for third at the Ivy League Championship.

Sung is joining senior Samantha Yao as the team co-captains this year. Yao nearly matched Sung's stroke average in 2021-22 (75.5) for the second-lowest mark in program history, and won medalist honors at the Bama Beach Bash in her first tournament of the spring. Five of her 17 rounds featured a score under par, the most ever in a single season for a Dartmouth golfer, and her 3-under 69 in the opening round of the Bama Beach Bash is the lowest in relation to par in program history.

The two other returning golfers, junior Penelope Tir and sophomore Claire Xu, have had their share of successes on the course as well. Tir, who ended the year with a 78.4 stroke average, finished strong at the Ivy League Championship this past spring, playing the last two rounds at 2-over par to tie Yao for 16th overall. Xu practically matched Tir with a stroke average of 78.5, posting her best finish at the Prospect Bay Intercollegiate in a tie for 11th out of 83 golfers. Both are looking for a little better consistency this year, and will vie to be contributors every week.

Kirk brought in four freshmen to round out his team, and at least two are expected to be in the running for a slot in the top five. Hope Hall, out of Boca Raton, Florida, made quite a name for herself this summer by competing on the Underrated Tour, playing in the championship tournament last month in San Francisco and finishing second overall. Sophie Thai from Los Altos, California, won numerous championships in high school and went undefeated as a senior at Los Altos High.

Also joining the team this year are a pair of Georgia natives in Kim Shen (Johns Creek) and Iris Cao (Duluth). Shen helped her Chattahoochee team finish third at the 2019 Georgia State Championship and competed at the 2021 U.S. Women's Amateur Open, and Cao was the Georgia 7A champion as a junior and senior, plus captained her team to the 7A state title every year.

For the Princeton Invitational at the par-71, 6,109-yard Springdale Golf Club on the Princeton campus, Kirk will send Sung, Yao, Tir, Hall and Thai as the group of five while Xu and Shen will play as individuals. All three rounds will have a shotgun start with the two rounds on Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. and the final round on Sunday at 9 a.m. as well. All six Ivy League programs — Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale — will join Albany, Fairleigh Dickinson, Georgetown, Holy Cross, St. John's and Seton Hall in the 12-team field.

Schedules