Women’s golf claimed third place out of thirteen teams at the Amherst Invitational this weekend. The competition — held at the Orchards Golf Club, in South Hadley, Mass. — was the team’s first of the season.
While the tournament was originally scheduled as a two-day event, the Ephs ultimately only competed on Sunday, as the course was closed on Saturday due to snow and poor weather conditions, Maryanne Grace ’27 told the Record.
But even with tricky weather that persisted into Sunday’s competition, the Ephs put on a strong showing. Natalie Cheong ’27 led the team in scoring shooting just two under par with a 74. Just behind Cheong was Victoria Kim ’26 who finished 17th (+3) with three birdies and Euna Lee ’26 shot 76 (+4) with two birdies. Michelle Ding ’28 finished with a 77 (+5), Grace finished at 82 (+10), and Emma Abramson ’27 landed at 84 (+12). The team finished with a total score of 309 (+21) strokes.
The Ephs finished just three shots behind the Mammoths and 13 strokes behind the NYU Bobcats who took first place. Cheong shared how the competitors from NYU were playing especially well. “One girl that I played against on the NYU team was just sinking puts like crazy.” Ding played with the winner of the tournament who was in the zone. “She was on fire…she even told me at the end that she had not been under par in eight years.”
In the face of this tough competition and narrow defeat by a close rival, the Ephs thought they could have played better. “If it was a two day tournament we could have made that come back,” Cheong said.
The length of the tournament was not the only unusual thing about it, according to Ding. Few team members had ever played on the Orchards course, and none of them got to warm up on it before play began. “Out of the five players, three of us had never seen the course at all,” Ding said.
While some teams will warm up on the course before the tournament to get a feel for what is to come, the Ephs went straight into competition, meaning that those who had not seen the course before were especially unprepared. “Typically we aren’t doing a practice round, so we have to ask our teammates for advice,” Cheong said.
The weekend’s tournament also marked the return of head coach Tomas Adalsteinsson from sabbatical in the fall, changing the feel of tournament play. In the fall, assistant coach Bill Kangas was at the helm. “The assistant coach last semester didn’t really give much advice; he was mainly there for moral support,” Ding said.
Still, it is good to have Adalsteinsson back Ding said. “I like the additional support [and advice] that our main coach gives us … like so and so hit it here and you should do this.”
The team will take this advice into next week’s Williams Spring Invitational at Taconic Golf Club. “For this week, we have more of an advantage as we are playing on Taconic and we can practice [there] Tuesday through Friday,” Cheong said.
