Women's Golf
- Title:
- Head Coach
- Email:
- edesanty@princeton.edu
- Alma Mater:
- Colby-Sawyer '05
Erika DeSanty, who is in her 12th year as Princeton's head women's golf coach in 2025-26, was named the head coach of the Princeton women's golf program on July 18, 2014.
During her 12 seasons at the helm, DeSanty has guided her team to four Ivy League Championships (2017, 2018, 2022, 2025) which has her tied with Eric Stein who won four over his 14+ seasons with the Tigers.
Along the way, DeSanty and her teams have won 19 tournaments, including three during the 2024-25 season.
This past season was a remarkable one for the Tigers as they picked up team wins at the Nittany Lion Invitational and the Princeton Invitational during the season before securing an Ivy League Championship by 16 strokes at Royal Palm Golf Course in Naples, Fla. Princeton had four of the top-seven finishers at the Ivy League Championship to secure a fourth team trip to NCAAs during DeSanty’s time at Princeton. The Tigers were seeded No. 10 at the Charlottesville Regional, and finished ninth with two players, Catherine Rao (9th) and Olivia Duan (13th) among the Top-15.
Four of the lowest total individual rounds in program history came during the 2024-25 season, led by Olivia Duan’s 63 at the Evie Odom Invitational which set a new program record for lowest round. That score helped the Tigers set a new program-record low team round of 279. Over the course of the season, Princeton had six of its Top-10 team rounds all-time, and five of its best team 54-hole scores of all time which included an 861 at the Yale Intercollegiate to set a new program record.
DeSanty has coached four Ivy League Player of the Year selections, including Maya Walton (2018), Victoria Liu (2023, 2024) and Catherine Rao (2025). In addition, three of her players have been named Ivy League Rookie of the Year in Liu (2022), Rao (2023) and Olivia Duan (2025).
In addition to Ivy League yearly awards, Tiger players have earned 28 All-Ivy honors during DeSanty’s tenure. The 2025 season saw Princeton equal the high mark for All-Ivy honors during DeSanty’s time as head coach with four players recognized.
For her work recruiting and developing her teams, DeSanty has been named Ivy League Coach of the Year three times since the award was first presented in 2015 with honors coming in 2017, 2022 and 2025.
Adding to the four team qualifications to a NCAA Regional during DeSanty’s tenure are a pair of individual NCAA Regional selections for Victoria Liu who qualified for both the 2023 and 2024 Regionals where she was T25 both times.
The 2021-22 season saw Princeton win its third Ivy title in five chances, setting program records along the way as DeSanty earned Ivy League Coach of the Year honors for the second time and was named LPGA Northeast Section Coach of the Year. While winning four tournament titles and posting top-10 finishes in every tournament between the fall and the spring, Princeton had what was then four of the best six rounds in program history, topped by a round of 280 during the Princeton Invitational that surpassed the previous program best by six strokes. The program's four best 54-hole scores all came between the fall and spring, as the team broke the program record twice in the fall, first with a score of 869 at the Penn State Invitational and then an 864 at the Princeton Invitational. Liu won Princeton's 11th medalist honor at the Ivy League Championship as Princeton went on to have its best team finish and score to par at the NCAA Regionals, finishing sixth at the Stanford site at +21.
DeSanty's fourth season of 2018 saw her lead the team to its second straight NCAA Regional after winning back-to-back Ivy League titles, making it the first time since 2004 and 2005 that Princeton won consecutive league championships and had consecutive postseason bids.
In her third season in 2017, which saw DeSanty earn Ivy League Coach of the Year honors, DeSanty guided the Tigers to the program's first Ivy League championship in 12 years, its first NCAA team tournament bid in 12 years, and an individual NCAA Championships bid for then-freshman Maya Walton, the third such bid in program history and first since 2013.
For five years previous to coming to Princeton, DeSanty guided Williams College to top-10 finishes at the NCAA Division III championship in each of her five seasons, including top-five finishes in each of her final three years. In 2014, Williams finished third in the nation, the highest finish in program history, while senior Georgiana Salant won the individual national title to capture her third All-America recognition.
The success under DeSanty at Williams came throughout the calendar, with the Ephs winning 26 tournaments during her five years. DeSanty's team won seven of its eight regular-season events in the 2013-14 campaign before posting the third-place finish at the NCAA finals. In tournament play overall, Williams has finished ahead of 447 out of 502 opponents during DeSanty's five years. She was honored in 2011 and 2014 by the National Golf Coaches Association as the Division III East Region Coach of the Year.
DeSanty's record at Williams is all the more impressive given that all the NCAA championship appearances were earned via at-large berths as the NESCAC, Williams' conference, does not sponsor women's golf. In 2014, Williams earned one of six at-large berths in the 21-team NCAA championship field.
A Clarksburg, Mass., native, DeSanty was inducted in 2019 into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in recognition of a high school and collegiate career that included Western Mass Division II MVP honors as a senior at Drury High School, which won the Western Mass title in 2001, the Colby-Sawyer program assists record and a conference title to close a two-year run as team captain.
In addition to her work as a coach, DeSanty is a published author with her first children's Book Outside Is The Place To Go published in 2025.
