Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Women's Golf Enjoying Successful Rebound Season
April 16, 2007 | Women's Golf
It isn't unusual that the Princeton women's golf team has won three tournaments already this year. With the Ivy League Championship ahead April 21-22, the Tigers could win at least four tournaments for the seventh time in their varsity history, which dates back only to 1992.
What's notable about Princeton's run this year is where the team was a year ago and how quickly and dynamically the team has turned around.
It's difficult to pick one reason for the resurgence. There are only eight players, only one of them a freshman. All eight returned from a team that carried no seniors in 2005-06. But that's not to suggest the Tigers didn't lose something last year.
A year ago at this time, Princeton headed into the Ivy League Championships as a team without a full-time coach. Men's assistant Dick Hunt served as interim coach after previous coach Eric Stein, who had guided the team since its first varsity season, left to take an administrative position at another school.
"Coach Hunt did a great job of serving as a transition for our team during the search process for a new head coach. We relied on each other a lot of the time, as we always had in the past as well," senior co-captain Caitlin Sullivan says. "A coach is a vital asset for any team, but we as players are ultimately the ones responsible for making sure our mental and physical games are peaking at the right times for tournament performance."
At the league championships, for the first time since the event began in 1997, Princeton finished neither first nor second. Yale, which has won the event every year the Tigers haven't, won by five shots over Harvard and nine shots over Princeton in a rain-shortened 27 holes.
"Ivies is always the goal that you work toward all season long, especially since the winner earns a bid to NCAA Regionals. Losing was definitely tough," senior co-captain Alexis Etow says. "The upside was that we knew we would have a second chance since everyone from last year's team was returning."
Over the summer, Princeton hired a new coach. She was foreign to the limitations the weather places on a northeastern team, having lived in Florida all her life until becoming Princeton's new head coach.
Amy Bond is a person who knows about winning. She came from a school with plenty of success on the links, as Florida State advanced to four NCAA Championship fields in the five years she was an assistant coach for the Seminoles. During her playing career at FSU, Bond was named the team's most valuable player three times and placed 30th individually at the NCAA finals her senior year.
But being a head coach was a new challenge. Perhaps it would take time before she and the Tigers achieved the same success the program did while it was winning Ivy League titles in 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2005 and claiming a program-best five tournament wins during the 1994-95 school year.
"Coach Bond brings the perfect balance of competitive drive and energy, and calmness and composure," Etow says. "Her smooth transition into the team's chemistry and her ability to recognize what inspires and motivates each of us as individual players is remarkable."
"Coach Bond is completely devoted to making the women's golf team at Princeton as strong as it can be," Sullivan adds. "She sees its potential as infinite and has done her utmost to develop this program as far as possible. She is unconditionally generous with her time, realizes the challenges of integrating athletics and academics at Princeton, and has an inner competitive drive that transfers to her team."
Then again, perhaps not. In the very first event with Bond as the team's mentor, Princeton won. It was the Princeton Invitational, and while it might be a quick conclusion that being the home team on a familiar course had built-in advantages, consider that being the home team comes with all the tasks of planning and hosting the event. Add to it the natural jitters Bond may have had as her first tournament as head coach, and the road to victory may not have been so easy after all.
In that tournament, Princeton finished ahead of all four other Ivy League schools in the field, bettering second-place Harvard by 18 shots. The next week, Princeton won on the home course of chief rival Yale, again edging out second-place Harvard by two shots and third-place Yale by 18.
"I am very happy with the way that we have played thus far. I am proud of the way that the women have established themselves as great players," Bond says. "We have played in tougher tournaments with strong fields and as a team, we have held our own. Golf is a process and we are still learning, but I am extremely proud of my players."
More surprising was the name at the top of the leaderboard. Annika Welander, a junior who hadn't finished higher than sixth in any collegiate event, won both the Princeton Invitational and Yale Fall Intercollegiate individual titles. Had Princeton, a program that saw the likes of three-time Ivy individual champ Avery Kiser '05, found its new star?
Yes, and no. It had found one of its new stars.
In its third and final fall tournament, the Ross Resorts Invitational, Princeton and sophomore Marlowe Boukis finished runner-up. Later in the spring, the Tigers finished second and first, respectively, in their last two tournaments heading into the Ivy meet.
At the Cincinnati Spring Invitational, Princeton finished second by two shots to Florida Atlantic, and senior Sharla Cloutier placed fourth overall. At the Georgetown Hoya Invitational, Princeton won by 13 shots over Yale with sophomore Susannah Aboff winning the individual title by one shot.
"I think we expect more from ourselves this year. No matter what we shoot or who we beat, we know we have the potential to do even better," Cloutier says. "We're playing against Old Man Par, and mid to high 70s just isn't going to cut it. Also, I feel like everyone is more confident, positive and motivated than ever. It's been great."
Consider a few more facts about the season to date:
· Princeton has not finished behind any team from the Northeast this year.
· Among those Northeastern teams, Princeton finished ahead of each of the six Ivy League teams at least once this year on 16 total occasions.
· Six players have finished in Princeton's scoring four this season and Princeton's leading scorer has been one of four players in the eight tournaments so far.
"All of the players are playing with a great deal of confidence. They each know that at any given moment they have greatness inside of them," Bond says. "As a coach, there is nothing better than watching a player realize her potential and reaching her goals. Furthermore, it is really exciting to watch because I never know who is going to come out on top."
While all of those facts likely place Princeton as a serious contender at the Ivy event, the Tigers will still have to swing the clubs like they have been all year long. But be certain, the desire is there.
"The entire season, and any chance of having a postseason, essentially comes down to one weekend, regardless of how we finished throughout the rest of the year. We know we have to be on top of our games at Ivies," Etow says. "I think that as soon as we got into the van after our disappointing finish at Ivies last spring, we were already looking forward to this year."
by Andrew Borders, Princeton Athletic Communications