Golf: Fall and spring seasons bring success

The men's and women's golf teams had success at points during the 2010-11 season. The Tigers competed in several fall tournaments and three spring tournaments to prepare for the Ivy League Championship in April.

Competing under rookie head coach Nikki Cutler, the women's team placed first in two tournaments this year, defeating six teams in the Turtle Bay Resort Collegiate Tournament in the fall, and finishing first of 13 teams in the Brown Invitational this spring. The Tigers ended up placing third in the Ivy League Championship.

Freshman Kelly Shon made a great impact her first year at Princeton, advancing individually into postseason play to compete in the NCAA Regional Tournament at Daytona Beach, Fla. After the season, she qualified for the U.S. Women's Open, which will be held in July.

“I think this past season can be deemed successful,” said Shon. “A win in both the fall and the spring, a few top finishes, but most importantly, we had an awesome time everywhere."

Some of the team’s favorite moments of the season did not happen on the course.

“One of my favorite memories from the year actually was not on the golf course,” senior Rachel Blum said. “Coach would always get lost when driving us to the different courses despite having both printed Mapquest directions and her iPhone GPS. [Senior] Kate Scarpetta was always the van DJ so when we would get lost she would play Jazmine Sullivan's "Goin' in Circles." The whole team would then sing along. Coach never said anything...”

"One of the many fond memories I'll take away from this year is our Easter egg hunt at our Ivy League Championship," Shon said. "It was an event that Kate's mother had put together and we literally pushed, shoved, elbowed each other with our bunny ears on in the midst of our Ivies...but that's the Princeton women's golf team for you.”

This season saw great representation for the Tigers in the All-Ivy League awards.

Sophomore Anna Jang was named second-team All-Ivy in 2010, Blum and Shon earned first-team All-Ivy honors in 2011 and Scarpetta was named second-team in 2011.

The Tigers will graduate Scarpetta, Blum and Maggie Boburg.

The men’s golf team season started out with a very successful fall season. In their second tournament, the McLaughlin Invitational at Bethpage State Park in New York, the Tigers placed second out of a pool of 15 teams. Princeton would earn four third-place finishes throughout the season and finished fifth at the Ivy League Championship in April.

“Our team got a lot of momentum this fall when we had a lot of guys playing well and had some good tournament finishes as a team," junior Chase Lovett-Woodsum said. "Our season highlight was probably our second round at St. Johns tournament at Bethpage Red when we shot minus-8 as a team [a Princeton record] and went on to finish second.”

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“This fall was the best season we've had since 2007," senior Eric Salzar said. “We're the highest ranked team in the Ivies according to Golfstat.com and the only Ivy League school with a winning record this fall.”

“Our aspirations for this year were to win the Ivy League Championship, and after our fall season that definitely seemed possible,” sophomore Bernie D’Amato said. "The spring season ended in disappointment with a fifth-place finish at Ivies, but we were in contention going into the final round and Yale deserved the title with a terrific final-round performance.”

D’Amato was a standout this season and won All-Ivy recognition in the 2010 season.

“The highlight for me this season was Bernie D'Amato getting the phone number of the cute girl that sat next to him on the plane down to Jacksonville... Signs of things to come for him,” junior Evan Harmeling said.

The strong fall season regrettably did not translate into the Ivy League Championship that the Tigers were hoping for.

“Unfortunately we weren't able to capitalize on this momentum and struggled as a team in the spring," Lovett-Woodsum said. "The cold weather and snow late into the spring made it tough for us to get a lot of practice time in before we started competing. We came up short of our goal of winning Ivies, but we feel like we have a good chance of accomplishing this next year.”