Only two Ivy League schools do not have women's golf teams. Penn announced Monday that the women's golf team will begin its first year of varsity competition this fall. The Quakers, who competed unofficially in the Princeton Invitational and Ivy Championship tournaments last spring, will now be eligible to compete for the league championship. Penn becomes the sixth Ivy League school to support a women's golf team. Only Cornell and Columbia are without women's programs. The Quakers' varsity status was made possible by $250,000 donations given to the program by both The Judge John C. Pappas Family Charitable Foundation, Inc. and the Thomas Anthony Pappas Family Charitable Foundation. The team lost captain Lindsay Stern to graduation, but Penn will return senior Natasha Miller, juniors Jen Schraut and Karen Pearlman and freshman Victoria Entine, while incoming freshman Stacy Kress will be looked upon to solidify the team. "Kress carries a handicap of four at Woodholme Country Club, has extensive tournament experience and will help the other ladies improve just by being around her," coach Francis Vaughn said in a statement released on Monday. Unofficially, Penn finished sixth in the Ivy Championship tournament at Bethpage Golf Club in Long Island, N.Y. -- 135 strokes behind fifth-place Harvard. Schraut was the top Quakers finisher with a 36-hole total of 200. Meanwhile, Entine shot a 214, Stern a 216 and Pearlman a 272. Penn is now the first Ivy League school to add a women's golf program since the inauguration of the women's Ivy Championship in 1997. And now the Quakers will have a trophy to play for, as Arthur A. Brennan, a Wharton alumnus, and his wife Katharine donated the Arthur A. Brennan, Jr. Family Trophy for the Women's Ivy League Championship. Each of Brennan's six children has also graduated from Penn. Vaughn, who has coached the men's golf team and the non-varsity women athletes since 1996, will serve as women's golf coach. Vaughn, a graduate of East Carolina University, led the Quakers' men to their first Ivy League Championship ever in 1998.
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