For Penn seniors Susan Xiao of Canada and Selina Li of Hong Kong, a team title in the Ivy League Championship, which wrapped up April 23rd at Century Country Club in Purchase, N.Y., probably had a little more meaning than a conference championship and a trip to the NCAA regionals, as significant as those accomplishments were.
Xiao and Li were around for the dark days when the arrival of a deadly coronavirus shut down the college golf season in the spring of 2020.
But it wasn’t just the conclusion of the wraparound 2019-2020 season that was affected for Ivy League golfers. While some college programs resumed playing in the fall of 2020 and just about everybody was back on the links in the spring of 2021, the Ivy League remained cautious in the face of the ongoing pandemic and none of the league’s athletes were able to compete for the duration of the 2020-2021 school year.
It's not like golf is the be all and end all for an Ivy League player. They’re there for the education. Nobody’s at Penn trying to make it to the LPGA Tour. But there are a lot of people, and Ivy League graduates are certainly among them, who think sports is a big part of developing the whole person for the professional life that lies ahead.
Xiao and Li will always have a year-and-a-half hole in their college golf careers. But a four-shot victory over Harvard in the Ivy League Championship will always be there, too, as a reminder that unimagined adversity can be overcome, that an ultimate triumph may still be out there even when things seem pretty hopeless.
The Quakers were led by a freshman, Bridget O’Keefe of Palo Alto, Calif., who finished in third place in the individual standings with an 8-over-par 224 total over a 6,086-yard, par-72 Century Country Club layout made even more challenging in the final round with rain and windy conditions.
Penn opened the weekend with an 8-over 296, which turned out to be the best team round of the tournament. The Quakers added a 307 in the second round that gave them a one-shot lead over Harvard heading into the final round.
A final round of 15-over 303 enabled Penn to finish with a 42-over 906 total and hold off Harvard by four shots for only the second Ivy League crown in the history of the program and the first for the Quakers since 2010.
Three days later, Penn found out it was headed for the Palm Beach Gardens Regional, where it will be the 11 seed when the tournament tees off Monday. Penn head coach Mark Anderson was named the Ivy League’s Coach of the Year. He is capably supported by assistant coach Karen Siegel, the runnerup in the Senior division in last summer’s Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur Championship at Lancaster Country Club.
Harvard, behind individual champion Isabella Gomez, a freshman from Colombia, was right there with Penn the whole weekend. The Crimson added a 304 in the second round to its opening round of 12-over 300 to creep within a shot of the Quakers going into the final round. Harvard closed with a 306 to earn runnerup honors with a 46-over 910 total.
Gomez took control of the individual chase with an opening round of 2-under 70, the best individual round of the tournament. She added a 3-over 75 in the second round before closing with a solid 2-over 74 in some difficult conditions in the final round for a 3-over 219 total that was four shots clear of runnerup Catherine Rao, a freshman at Princeton from Camarillo, Calif.
Gomez will represent Harvard in the Athens Regional, where she will compete as an individual.
It was another six shots back to Dartmouth in third place as the Big Green added a 306 in the second round to their opening round of 307 before closing with a 303 for a 52-over 916 total.
Yale was two shots behind Dartmouth in fourth place with a 54-over 918 total. The Bulldogs opened with a 306 and added a 308 in the second round before finishing up with a 304.
Defending champion Princeton, behind Rao’s runnerup finish, was a shot behind Yale in fifth place with a 55-over 919 total. The Tigers were just a shot behind Penn with a solid opening round of 9-over 297, but backed off with a 312 in the second round and a final round of 310.
Rao matched par in the opening round with a 72 and struggled a little with a 78 in the second round before closing with a 1-over 73 to finish four shots behind Harvard’s Gomez with a 7-over 223 total.
Rounding out the six-team field was Columbia, which finished in sixth place with a 953 total as the Lions sandwiched a 325 in the second round with a pair of 314s.
Penn’s O’Keefe was Gomez’s closest pursuer in the battle for the individual title going into the final round as O’Keefe matched par in the second round, the low individual round of the day, after opening with a 2-over 74 that left her just a shot behind the eventual individual champion.
O’Keefe fell back a little with a 6-over 78 in the final round, but that still left her alone in third place with an 8-over 224 total.
Backing up O’Keefe for Penn was Natalie Cao, a sophomore from Sugar Land, Texas who finished alone in sixth place with a 13-over 229 total. Cao carded back-to-back 3-over 75s in the first two rounds before closing with a 79.
The rest of the Penn lineup, the two seniors, Xiao and Li, and Julie Shin, a freshman from Brambleton, Va., all finished among the large group of eight players tied for 10th place at 232. That meant the entire Penn lineup finished in the top 10, a recipe for success in team golf on the college level.
Xiao contributed an even-par 72 to Penn’s fast start in the opening round before adding an 81 in the second round and finishing up with a 79. After adding a 79 in the second round to her opening-round 80, Li delivered a crucial 1-over 73 as the Quakers were trying to hold off Harvard in the final round. After opening with a 78, Shin struggled to an 84 in the second round. But Shin matched Li for the low round of the final round with a 1-over 73 that went a long way toward delivering an Ivy League championship for Penn.
Dartmouth senior Samantha Yao, who was District One’s best player for three years during her scholastic career at Conestoga, and Yale’s Coco Chai, a senior from China, finished in a tie for fourth place in the individual standings, each landing on 9-over 225, a shot behind Penn’s O’Keefe.
Yao won back-to-back District One Class AAA individual crowns in 2016 and ’17 and had three straight top-10 finishes in the PIAA Class AAA Championship. It looked like Yao’s college career was going to end with the arrival of the coronavirus as Dartmouth briefly dropped its men’s and women’s golf programs in the aftermath of the early days of the pandemic.
Sounded like some deep-pocketed Dartmouth alums with ties to the golf programs got together and made sure men’s and women’s golf continued at Dartmouth because golf people are like that.
In Yao’s final appearance for Dartmouth, she added a 77 in the second round to her opening round of 3-over 75 before closing with her best round of the tournament, a 1-over 73. Chai was only four shots behind Gomez in the individual chase after adding a 2-over 74 in the second round to her opening-round 75. Chai struggled a little in the final round’s tough conditions, finishing up with a 79.
Chai’s Yale teammate, senior Ami Gianchandani, a product of The Pingrey School, and Harvard’s Iris Wang, a freshman from Hong Kong, finished in a tie for seventh place, each posting a 14-over 230.
Gianchandani isn’t just good for any Ivy League player, she’s just a good player, period. She beat a future major champion when she took down Patty Tavatanakit in a round-of-16 match in the 2017 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo.
Gianchandani earned a spot in the field for last spring’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, N.C. and missed the 36-hole cut by a shot.
In her final appearance for Yale, Gianchandani added a 78 in the second round to her opening round of 5-over 77 before finishing up with a 3-over 75. Wang sandwiched an 80 in the second round with a pair of 3-over 75s.
Yao’s Dartmouth teammate, Sophie Thai, a freshman from Los Altos, Calif., finished a shot behind Gianchandani and Wang in ninth place with a 15-over 231 total. Thai opened with a 3-over 75 and added an 80 in the second round before closing with a 4-over 76.
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