Penn men's and women's golf take 3rd and 5th at Ivy Championships

Over the weekend, both Penn men’s and women’s golf both competed in the Ivy Championships. Going up against stiff competition, the men’s team placed fifth while the women’s team finished third. On the women’s side, the Quakers won the team Ivy Championship in 2023 but were unable to repeat the same success this year.

For the men, it was a three-day event at Watchung Valley Golf Club in Watchung. N.J. The event featured a 54-hole event played on a par-71 course. On the last day of the event, the Red and Blue shot 298 as a team, bringing their total to 29-over-par and 881 total strokes. The two teams to finish behind Penn were Dartmouth and Cornell, who shot a total of 887 and 893, respectively.

Finishing ahead of the Quakers was Columbia in fourth place with 871 total strokes and Harvard in third place at 7-over-par with 859 total strokes. Closing in at the top of the leaderboard was Yale who won the team title shooting a 275 on Sunday while completing the weekend at 9-under-par with 843 total strokes. The Bulldogs narrowly defeated runner-up Princeton, who finished three strokes behind Yale and was the only other team in the field to finish under par.

Although the standings do not reflect it, Penn had one of their better performances at the Championship, shooting below 300 in all three rounds of the event for the first time since 2009. The 29-over-par team performance was also Penn’s best showing at the Championship since their title-winning performance in 2015, where they shot 21-over-par.

Standout performances for the Quakers included junior Ben Scott, who shot a 2-under-par 69 on the last day of the event, finishing tied in 14th. Freshman Max Fonseca would finish 18th with a 7-over-par performance on Sunday.

For the women, they also played a 54-hole event on a par-71 course, but they did so at the Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn. The Red and Blue fell just short to Dartmouth and Yale, with the Big Green taking home the team title with a team score of 899 strokes. Yale finished in the runner-up spot by shooting a team total of 901 strokes, just missing the gold-medal position by two strokes.

Despite a strong performance by Penn shooting a team total of 300 on Sunday, the effort was not enough to take over Dartmouth or Yale as the team finished with 907 strokes altogether. Rounding out the rest of the field was Harvard in fourth at 914 strokes, Columbia in fifth at 922 strokes, and Princeton in sixth at 934 strokes.

Freshman Maggie Ni was Penn’s low scorer throughout the weekend, earning second-team All-Ivy honors after tying for seventh amongst all golfers. She had a three-round score of 9-over-par 225, which is the third-best three-round score at the Championship behind only Rina Jung C’19 and sophomore Bridget O’Keefe. Sophomore Julie Shin put up a score of 12-over-par for the seventh-best Championship score in Penn history, barely missing out on All-Ivy honors.

With the season now ending for golf, the teams can look back on a productive season that just did not have enough to win the ultimate goal of an Ivy League Championship.