Golfers can go their entire careers without ever sinking a hole-in-one. Seo Hee Moon ’14 was able to check that feat off her bucket list on October 17. Then, eight days later, she did it again.
Moon won her fourth individual title of the year as the women’s golf team ran away with victory on Monday at the Sacred Heart Fall Classic in Milford, Conn. The team’s four tournament wins this year equals the number of titles the team had had in its previous three years combined.
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The Elis crushed the competition by twenty strokes, shooting a cumulative 623 (+47) over two rounds of play. Head coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 said this margin of victory was the largest her team has seen all season.
“I think it’s also hard for some students to understand that in each tournament, we are competing against over 10 teams, so winning tournaments is a huge accomplishment,” captain Alyssa Roland ’11 said.
En route to another title, freshman standout Moon managed to shoot her second hole in one in eight days on Monday on the par-three sixth hole of the golf course. Moon took first place in the tournament with a 148 (+4).
Rompothong said Moon is undoubtably a reason why the team has been successful.
“[The two holes-in-one are] just ridiculous,” Harriet Owers-Bradley said. “Moon is just solid. She didn’t even need the hole-in-one to win. That was just a bonus to her round.”
Sun Gyoung Park ’14 took fourth in the tournament, shooting a cumulative 155 (+11).
Casssie Boles ’11 tied for sixth in the tournament with a cumulative 157 (+13). Callie Kemmer ’12 tied for eighteenth after shooting a cumulative 163 (+19), while Roland tied for twenty-fourth with a 166 (+22).
And while under NCAA rules only Moon, Park, Boles, Kemmer, and Roland counted towards Yale’s official score, Yale’s second team, consisting of Owers-Bradley, Alexandra Lipa ’13, Lily Boettcher ’12, and Joy Kim ’13 numerically beat Brown, who took second place in the tournament.
Roland said the team’s performance was an indication of its depth.
Brown, which shot a cumulative 643 (+67) was the only Ivy League competition in the tournament. The host Sacred Heart University took fourth with a cumulative 653 (+77).
Owers-Bradley said the team knew heading into this tournament that the field would not be very strong, and that the team had a goal to take first place. Still, the Elis did not anticipate winning by so many shots despite a difficult course.
This was Yale’s last tournament of the fall season, but the Bulldogs are eagerly looking ahead to the spring.
Rompothong said the team would use the fall season momentum as an incentive to train harder this winter with a particular emphasis on putting and chipping.
Roland added the Ivy League competition should watch out for Yale in the spring, but Rompothong has even greater ambitions.
“We are aiming very high,” Rompothong said. “I think the team has the potential… [and] everyone looks really strong. We are aiming to go beyond Ivies to see how far we get in the national championship.”
After playing only two collegiate golf tournaments, Seo Hee Moon ’14 already has two individual wins under her belt and a record for the lowest women’s round of golf ever played on the Yale Golf Course — a 67.
And while captain Alyssa Roland ’11 said most golfers face some bumps transitioning from individual tournaments while in high school to playing for a team in college, Moon has relished this new playing experience.
“I don’t feel like I have to play for myself anymore,” Moon said. “I have a support group behind me, and we’re all in it together.”
Moon, who began playing golf at age three, said she did not enjoy the sport at first because it took too much time away from friends and schoolwork. However, her father, a golf professional and Moon’s coach, pushed his daughter to continue playing. Eventually, Moon said, golf became a natural part of her life, particularly the competitive aspect of the sport.
“Good golfers love the competition,” Head coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 said. “She relishes it. She gives it all she can, and steps it up a notch when she is head-to-head with someone she wants to beat.”
Rompothong attributed Moon’s strong mental game to her victories in junior golf. Because Moon has proven to herself that she is capable of performing under pressure, she has the mental strength to win.
Moon, a native of Mukilteo, Wash., began playing on the junior golf circuit in her home state at age 10. Moon said winning the first junior tournament she entered marked the beginning of her career. At age 13, she made the jump from the state to the national level. Moon estimates that since age 13, she has played in about 40 tournaments across the country. During that time, Moon took first place at the 2007 Coca-Cola Junior Championship at Boyne Highlands and at the 2009 AJGA Junior at Wenatchee.
Moon said she knew she wanted to play Division I golf in college and initially wanted to go to a southern state where the weather is nice year-round.
“I thought about it and decided that if golf didn’t work out for me in the future, I would want a strong educational background, so I decided to come to Yale,” Moon said.
Rompothong added that while Moon actually contacted her about Yale, the freshman was a highly recruited player because of her very successful junior career. Rompothong said Moon had offers from Pac-10 schools, but she came out to the East for a tournament and fell in love with Yale.
And the women’s team has been equally pleased with having her as one of their newest teammates.
Roland said having such a good player has forced every golfer on the team to step up her game.
Harriet Owers-Bradley ’11 added that she has never seen someone shoot a 67 or play with such composure while doing so in her four years on the team.
“She is one of best players we have had in a long time,” Owers-Bradley said. “These are early days, but she has such great potential. It’s really exciting.”
Yale has always been known for its architecture, from Sterling Memorial Library to the Yale Bowl. But a mere 12-minute drive from campus, there is an architectural gem of a different variety.
Earlier this month, Golfweek magazine ranked Yale’s golf course, The Course at Yale, the number one college golf course in the magazine’s “Best Campus Courses” in 2010.
“At Yale, the golf course is as good as the education,” said Scott Ramsay, the course’s superintendant.
Bradley Klein, Golfweek’s architecture editor, said he and a team of 625 course evaluators stationed around the world rank golf courses in various categories. Klein has been in charge of “Golfweek’s Best” for the last 16 years, he said.
According to “Golfweek’s Best Courses Rater Handbook 2010-’11,” the evaluators judge courses based on 10 criteria, including the overall land plan, variety and memorability of various pars, conditioning, integrity of design (for classic courses) and quality of shaping (for modern courses).
Golfweek’s acknowledgement of Yale’s course, which has also been ranked among the overall top 100 courses in the United States in various other publications, is another accolade for a course that already had a storied past.
BACK TO THE ROARING ’20s
In 1924, Sarah Tompkins gave 700 acres of land to Yale in memory of her husband, Ray Tompkins, class of 1884. Yale employed United State Golf Association co-founder and legendary golf course architect Charles Blair McDonald to design each of the 18 holes. Famed golf course architects Seth Raynor and Charles Banks implemented McDonald’s designs.
The $400,000 final product, which opened in 1926, was one of the most expensive golf courses ever built at the time, Klein said.
Men’s head golf coach Colin Sheehan ’97 added that the course is a relic of the Roaring ’20s, going hand-in-hand with Yale’s other ambitious projects of the time, including the residential colleges, the Yale Bowl and Payne Whitney Gymnasium.
Peter Pulaski, director of golf operations at The Course at Yale, said the course is one of the best examples of early American golf architecture.
“I find it amazing that the people involved did what they did with very little modern machinery,” Pulaski said.
Klein said the architects adopted British and Scottish elements on an enormous piece of land with lots of rock, heavy soil and dramatic trees, resulting in a course of Gothic proportions.
“There’s nothing soft about it,” Klein said. “It’s very pronounced and theatrical.”
Furthermore, Klein said the top-quality course was designed for a top-quality golf program; Yale went on to win four NCAA championships in the 1930s.
TENDING THE GARDEN
Yet over time, the golf course lost its classical charm. Klein said the ’80s and ’90s were periods of modernization to a “softer, Florida look.” In September 2003, Klein went as far as to say, the course in was “a landmark gone askew.”
Ramsay, who has studied golf course architecture for 20 years, came to the Yale golf course six years ago and began the on-going turnaround.
“I took a photograph of [the golf course from] 1934, and I studied the bunker profiles, the tree lines, the fairway mowing lines and the shapes of the greens,” he said. “I got a sense of what the original intent of the architect was.”
Sheehan said Ramsay restored the fairway and green sizes to their original specifications, solved drainage problems and cleaned up the tree lines.
After trimming trees and mowing lines, Ramsay said he is still only halfway there. There is more tree work to complete, along with leveling tees, improving drainage and upgrading the agronomy.
Klein said that in “Golfweek’s Best” judging criteria, Yale has stood out in its conditioning — or quality of course maintenance. He said Ramsay, who won Golfweek’s Superintendant of the Year award in 2006, understands the classical design of the golf course.
In particular, Klein said Ramsay has made the bunkers more severe and stark as opposed to the “Florida look.”
“We’re a throwback,” Ramsay said. “The course is not tidy and park-like. We let things get overgrown … This lends itself well to being very environmentally friendly.”
As to whether or not use of the golf course has increased as a result of the course’s improvements, Ramsay said the course play at Yale has held its own through the recession.
PLAYING THE GREEN
Ramsay and Pulaski’s efforts have attracted top golfers to play for Yale.
Klein said that regardless of where a golfer attends college, he or she develops an emotional relationship with the golf course. In the case of Yale, the course is unique because it syncs with the museum quality of the rest of the campus.
Men’s golf captain Tom McCarthy ’11, who was named the Ivy League Player of the Year last year, said the accessibility of the course to campus, as well as the challenging nature of the course, were clinchers for him.
“When you’re playing a very hard course, you’re more likely to get better,” he said. “Princeton and Cornell have good courses, but ours is much more challenging.”
McCarthy added the severe nature of the property, with elevation changes, gives off an intimidating visual appearance. Because golf is a very mental and visual game, hazards and uphill shots may cause even the best players to make a mistakes.
Women’s golf captain Alyssa Roland ’11 said the golf course at Yale helped her choose to between Yale and Harvard, as Harvard’s course is farther away from campus and the school does not own it.
“[The course] makes golf a whole new sport,” Roland said.
Women’s golf coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 said that while she did not think the golf course was necessarily the clincher for her players to attend Yale, the course experience, including an extremely supportive staff, made the course very attractive.
“There is no question the course helps [to attract players],” Sheehan said. “The University is its own attraction for students, and then the golf course seals the deal.”
He added: “The design of the Yale Golf Course belongs in the elite echelon of golf architecture in America. It does deserve to be considered one of the top 20 courses in the country.”
Correction: Sept. 29, 2010
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misattributed the final quote. It was given by men’s head golf coach Colin Sheehan ’97, not women’s coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00.
The women’s golf team made the most of the home-court advantage this weekend by taking first place at the Yale Women’s Intercollegiate.
While Penn briefly led by two strokes following the first round of play, Yale managed to take the lead after the second round Saturday and didn’t relinquish it Sunday. Yale finished with a cumulative score of 886 (+22), finishing 13 shots ahead of the Quakers, which took second place, followed by Boston College in third. Longwood University and Fairleigh Dickinson rounded out the top five.
The only other Ivies to compete were Brown and Dartmouth, which took eighth and ninth place, respectively. A total of 14 schools competed in the tournament.
Seo Hee Moon ’14 proved that her first-place finish last weekend at the Princeton Invitational was not an aberration. Moon once again came in first overall, posting a cumulative 210, six under par. Moon, who was in second place heading into Sunday’s final round, managed to take the lead with a third round score of 67. Her 67 is a course record for a woman’s single round.
“Shooting the 67 was really exciting,” Moon said. “The lowest score I ever shot was a 67 during the high school state championship my freshman year. Setting the course record was huge to me. I didn’t actually know 67 was the course record here.”
Captain Alyssa Roland ’11 and Harriet Owers-Bradley ’11 tied for seventh place with cumulative scores of 223 (+7). Alexandra Lipa ’13 tied for 26th with a cumulative 232 (+16) and Cassie Boles ’11 shot a 234 (+18) to tie for 33rd place.
Head coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 said the Yale II team also played extremely well, although the group didn’t officially figure in the final standings. Callie Kemmer ’12 tied with Bradley and Roland for seventh place, while Joy Kim ’13 and Lily Boettcher ’12 tied for 19th place.
She added she would take the weekend’s results into consideration when picking a line-up when the Bulldogs travel to Penn State for the Nittany Lion Invitational this weekend, and that Kemmer, who won the tournament two years ago, would certainly make the cut.
“We have a really strong team with a lot of depth,” Owers-Bradley said. “Picking the top five is a nightmare. There is no way of knowing who will shoot the best on any given course.”
The team attributed a number of reasons for its early success.
Owers-Bradley said that the team was able to perform under pressure on its home turf by pretending the tournament was just another round of qualifying. She said in the past the team would have difficulties because it knew it was capable of doing well on the course, but it couldn’t perform on the right day.
“The freshman [Moon] kicking our butts is kind of a wake-up call,” she added. “I’m so happy for Seo Hee. It’s amazing what she’s just done.”
Rompothong and Roland said competition within the team and multiple returning seniors who want to finish strong have elevated everyone’s overall play this season.
Roland said the team would continue its practice routine this week to prepare for Penn State next weekend, as what it has been doing is clearly working.
“I’m really impressed with the great start to the season,” Roland said. “We will keep doing what we’re doing and focus on what needs to be improved.”
All that the three seniors on the women’s golf team want is a ring on their fingers — the Ivy League championship ring, that is.
And with all three Elis expected to compete in the team’s starting five, the Bulldogs are hoping they have the depth to win Yale’s first conference title since 2006.
“We have one of the most talented squads Yale women’s golf has ever seen,” captain Alyssa Roland ’11 said.
Head coach Chawwadee Rompothong ’00 said the seniors — Roland, Cassie Boles ’11 and Harriet Owers-Bradley ’11 — have always shown the leadership and hard work necessary to accomplish their goals.
“They will really help the team quite a bit,” Rompothong said. “They have a lot of tournaments under their belts and know how to balance academics and golf correctly.”
While the seniors offer collegiate experience, Owers-Bradley said starting freshmen Seo Hee Moon ’14 and Sun Gyoung Park ’14 bring additional talent to the squad.
Rompothong said that while the transition from high school to college takes time, the freshmen are already making an impact.
Both Moon and Park have outstanding junior résumés peppered with USGA events: Park played in the U.S. Women’s Open this summer and even became the 21st golfer in tournament history to sink a hole in one when she shot an eagle on the par-3 sixth hole. She was also named one of the top 10 freshmen in the country last Thursday by Golfweek Magazine. She was the only Ivy League player to make that list.
Moon, who will join the seniors as one of Yale’s top five this weekend at the Princeton Invitational at Springdale Golf Club in Princeton, N.J., said the team has a very positive dynamic, and that everyone is looking forward to the weekend.
The Elis’ strong freshman talent and senior depth reflect the increased competitiveness of the Ivy League, Rompothong said.
“Over the last five years, Ivy League women’s golf has gotten a tremendous amount of good publicity,” she said. “A lot of juniors realize they can get a great education and play golf.”
While the Ivy Championship does not begin until April, the Bulldogs will meet many of their Ivy foes at the Princeton Invitational on Saturday.
“It will be a good tester,” Owers-Bradley said.
Roland said the Princeton Invitational will hopefully be a way for the team to kick off the season with a bang.
Although the Elis took fifth place at the Ivy Championship last year, they did beat Harvard, who had won the championship in 2008 and 2009.
Rompothong said the team is going to have to wait and see how the season progresses before thinking about Ivies.
“We’re defiantly going to be contenders,” she said. “With golf, it’s all about staying focused and controlling what you can control. The team is extremely talented and will work hard to stay competitive.”
Correction: Sept. 15, 2010
The article “Eli Seniors Aiming for Ivies” misreported the women’s golf team’s place in the Ivy Championship. The team placed second, not fifth.
The men’s and women’s golf teams struggled to overcome tough weather conditions and Ivy foes on the road this past weekend.
The men’s team finished fifth at the Caves Valley Invitational after taking first place in its last two tournaments, and the women took third at the ROAR-EE Invitational behind Harvard and Penn.
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After 16 days with no tournament play, the women’s golf team stepped back up to the tee Friday and took third place at the ROAR-EE Invitational with a cumulative score of 619. Five other Ivy teams competed in the tournament, which captain Taylor Lee ’10 said was a great way to prepare for the upcoming Ivy Championship.
Lee said Harvard and Penn proved to be the toughest competition at this tournament, which was hosted by Columbia in Suffern, N.Y. Harvard took first place, shooting a cumulative 603, while Penn took second with a 613.
Although the Bulldogs were in second place behind Harvard going into the second round of the tournament, they dropped to third place in the second and final day of play.
“The second day it was a lot windier, especially on the back nine,” Alyssia Roland ’11 said. “Also, the back nine was even tighter than the front nine, and the pin placement on the final day was frequently on a side slope, which made shorter putts more difficult.”
Alexandra Lipa ’13 led the Elis, finishing tied for fifth place in the individual standings. She was tied for first place at the end of the first round, but ultimately she shot a cumulative 151 on the par-72 course. Roland and Harriet Owers-Bradley ’11 tied for 15th with a cumulative 155. Callie Kemmer ’12 tied for 25th with a 158, while Cassie Boles ’11 finished tied for 49th with a cumulative 163.
Roland said that while her team members all have great swings, Harvard and Penn were able to beat the Bulldogs because of putting. She said the fact that they were sinking birdies and making par led to lower scores.
Owers-Bradley said that because the team leaves Wednesday for the Ivy Championships at Baltusrol in Springfield, N.J., the Elis have only a few days to improve their game.
The men’s golf team also fell to Penn this weekend, taking fifth place out of nine teams at the Yale-hosted Caves Valley Spring Intercollegiate in Owings Mill, Md. This was the Bulldogs first loss in close to a month.
“You can’t win them all,” Brad Kushner ’13 said.
The Elis shot a cumulative 625 to tie with Cornell.
The Quakers finished with a cumulative 612, while Harvard took second with a 617. The Princeton Tigers shot a 622 for third.
Captain Ben Wescoe ’10 said the strong winds and fast putting greens made for some tough rounds of golf.
Tom McCarthy ’11 led the Bulldogs, tying for second place.
McCarthy said he was able to grind out some decent scores and keep his playing together Saturday and Sunday, despite the conditions.
“I was fortunate to finish in second,” he said.
Kushner finished second for the Bulldogs, followed by Wescoe, Carson Weinand ’13 and Brandon Marick ’11.
Kushner said that after hitting the ball extremely well the past three weeks, this weekend he struggled with ball placement. He said he would short side himself on approaches to the green, leaving him with a tough putt.
“This wasn’t our best showing, and we have a few things to work on before Ivies,” Wescoe said. “But we are still very confident and know we will be ready to win next week.”
Kushner said this tournament was much less important than the Ivies, and he likes the team’s position heading into the conference competition.
“This puts the fire back in our bodies, and we want a victory next week more than ever,” Kushner said. “Hopefully our troubles this week will be a blessing in disguise.”
Wescoe said the team will be working on ball-striking and putting to prepare for the Ivies.
Both the men’s and women’s golf teams will be competing in the Ivy Championship at the Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., from April 23 to April 26.
The women’s golf team proved that it has shaken off its winter cobwebs after taking fifth place in the Hoya Invitational Tournament in Beallsville, Md., on Tuesday against what captain Taylor Lee ’10 described as “a pretty strong field.”
Yale shot a cumulative 637 in the tournament, which had 17 teams competing. Nova Southeastern University took first place in the tournament, shooting a cumulative 612 after two rounds of play. The University of Maryland took second place in the tournament with a score of 616, and Campbell University and Rollins tied for third with a score of 635. Yale shot the lowest out of the three other Ivy League teams at the tournament.
The Bulldogs had a particularly strong first round on Monday, shooting a cumulative 308 on the par-72 course, finishing the day tied for second place with Maryland only five shots behind Nova Southeastern.
Alexandra Lipa ’13 finished first for Yale in the tournament and tied for 12th overall with a 158. And while her team did not sustain its second-place finish after the first day of play, she said that all of the teams who competed came out with higher scores Tuesday because of windy and cold conditions.
“The conditions were tougher [Tuesday],” captain Taylor Lee said. “None of our drives were rolling. It was pretty much you hit your drive and it stopped rolling.”
Lee said, however, that the conditions were typical of New England weather, and the team must adjust to them. Yet the conditions were not entirely detrimental — Lipa said the wetness of the course made the greens slower, which helped because she is usually a quick putter.
Harriet Owers-Bradley ’11 tied for 15th place with a score of 159, Lee tied for 23rd with a 161, and Cassie Boles ’11 and Alyssa Roland ’11 shot 163 to tie for 30th out of the 90 golfers who played in the tournament.
Yale rebounded after finishing in 16th place out of seventeen teams at the JMU Invitational in Orlando Park, Fla., three weeks ago.
“That first tournament [of the spring season] was our first since October,” Lee said. “Since then, we have been able to play outside. Prior to that tournament we really hadn’t played much at all.”
In addition to outdoor practice, Lee attributed her team’s improvement to working on its short game, especially on chipping and pitching.
Lipa said that now the team has seen the conditions and competition, it can work to improve its game through various shot techniques. And while the playing field in this tournament was certainly fierce, Lipa, Lee and Roland all acknowledged the other Ivy League teams as the team’s biggest competition and the Ivy Championship in April as the most important tournament for the team.
Roland said it was unlikely the Elis would face the top-100 teams who fared well in the tournament again later in the season.
The Bulldogs already defeated Penn 6–0 in a scrimmage over spring break, while they took down Ivy foes Columbia, Penn and Brown, who took seventh, eighth and 12th at the Hoya Invitational, respectively.
The Elis have more than two weeks to prepare for their next tournament, the ROAR EE Invitational hosted by Columbia in Suffern, N.Y.
