Hosting 14 schools at its home course this past weekend for the annual Yale Invitational, the Yale women’s golf team finished in eighth place with a team score of 62-over.
The Elis were looking to defend their title after winning the tournament at Yale Golf Course last season behind strong performances from Elisabeth Bernabe ’17 and Sandy Wongwaiwate ’17. This year it was Bernabe and Jennifer Peng ’18 who paced the Bulldogs, each shooting scores of 12–over in the three-round event to tie for 20th place individually.
Furman University won the tournament with a team total of 16-over, five strokes ahead of second-place Clemson. Princeton, Harvard and Penn captured the fifth, sixth and seventh places, respectively, in the team standings.
“The level of competition at the tournament this year was far above anything I’ve seen at any other Ivy League tournament,” Sydney Babiak ’19 said. “We had four teams playing from the ACC, SEC and Big 12 conferences, and we knew that although this may make a victory significantly more difficult to obtain, we would in the end benefit from the experience of being challenged in such a way. I know personally that I appreciated being able to compare my game to the games of some of the best teams in the NCAA.”
The Yale Invitational, which ends the Elis’ fall season, marked the third straight tournament in which Peng led her team with the low score. The Ivy League Rookie of the Year last spring, Peng also finished in the top-20 at the Yale Invitational last season.
After 52 holes of play, Bernabe was at 10-over for the tournament, a score that would have been good for a 13th place finish individually. But the junior bogied the 17th and 18th holes to move to 20th and tie with Peng. Bernabe scored four-over in every round of the tournament.
Julie Luo ’19 finished nine strokes behind Bernabe and Peng at 21-over, also cracking the top-50 in the individual golfer standings. Babiak and Wongwaiwate rounded out the team with scores of 22-over and 25-over, respectively.
Sabrina Long ’19, Sara Garmezy ’17, Jayshree Sarathy ’18 and Julia Yao ’18 formed the Yale B team, which beat out Long Island-Brooklyn’s varsity squad to secure 15th place out of the 16 teams in attendance.
Though Long turned in a total score of 20-over — a lower tally than three of Yale’s A team golfers — the biggest highlight for Yale’s second team may have been Sarathy, who shot a hole-in-one on the par-three 13th hole of round one.
After opening the tournament with an 83 in the first round, Garmezy bounced back in the second round with a much-improved score of 73. She finished the Yale Invitational at 22-over.
This weekend’s tournament was the last competition for the Bulldogs until they next compete in the BYU Entrada Classic on Mar. 14.
“The Yale Invitational is a great tournament to end on,” Luo said. “It’s always a ton of fun and no doubt my favorite tournament so far. It’s been a solid season, but I think the team is ready to work hard in the winter to come back stronger than ever in the spring.”
The Bulldogs have competed in three tournaments this fall, placing 17th at the Vanderbilt Invitational on Sept. 20 and fifth at the Princeton Invitational on Oct. 4.