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(10/05/99 9:00am)
The standings might not indicate it, but the Penn women's golf team is rapidly improving. Though the Quakers finished in a tie with Hampton for last place in a nine-team field at last weekend's Princeton Invitational, the women reduced their score by 57 strokes from their performance at the Yale Invitational the week before. Penn shot an even 800 at Princeton, indicating an even more substantial improvement over last year's squad, which posted scores in excess of 900 on a regular basis. The players were understandably thrilled with the team's performance. Sophomore Victoria Entine went so far as to say that this was the best showing ever in the short history of women's golf at Penn. Part of the success can be attributed to playing on a far more forgiving course at Princeton. The Yale course's massive greens, hills and traps were some of the main culprits responsible for the team's previous high score. But, to dismiss Penn's improved scores as simply a matter of a course change is to do the team a disservice. "It's a lot easier but the lowest scores didn't really go down from the week before," Entine said. In fact, senior captain Natasha Miller thinks the advantage of an easier course is more psychological than anything else. "Golf is very much a mental game," said Miller, who viewed Princeton with increased confidence after surviving the much tougher Yale layout. All the women lifted their confidence with this solid performance and have inspired Miller to set a numerical goal for the next tournament, something the team was very wary about doing at the start of the season. Penn shot a collective 391 in the second round at Princeton, prompting Miller to call the sub-400 day a "huge landmark that we've surpassed. Next week, we'd like to shoot under 400 both days." Junior Jen Schraut noticed an all-around improvement in the play of the women this week. "We were more consistent in our hitting," she said. Freshman Stacy Kress again proved to be Penn's most impressive player, registering the lowest score among the Quakers. "We're extremely impressed by her dedication to the team," Miller said. "And her performance has been spectacular." The final test of the fall season for the Quakers will take place Friday and Saturday at the Rutgers Invitational in New Brunswick, N.J. During their winter hiatus, the players will train at their indoor facility on campus and utilize a new computerized device that can record and compare their swings. The Quakers then look forward to the William and Mary Invitational in late March to open the spring season. "It's only going to get better," Miller said. With that improvement, it's not hard to understand why the Quakers are so excited.
(09/30/99 9:00am)
The Penn women's golf team fared as expected, rather than as hoped, last weekend in New Haven, Conn. Penn's women's golfers placed 19th in a 22-team field at the Yale Invitational in their inaugural tournament as a varsity team. The home team captured the title with a two round score of 633, 73 over par, while Penn finished with a score of 857, 297 over par and 224 strokes behind the winners. Yet the Penn golfers were not at all upset. The Quakers still remember last year when the club team didn't have matching uniforms and equipment bags, much less their own tournaments. The Red and Blue shot over 900 in the Ivy League Championship last spring. All that is different now. "We've already improved," Penn captain Natasha Miller said. "Yale is a very challenging course and we played as well as we could." Penn had never participated in the event before. Miller admitted that Yale's was one of the toughest courses the team had seen, replete with deep bunkers and a deadly par-three hole in which 140 of the 160 yards are over water. "It's long and hilly," sophomore Victoria Entine said. "Besides just playing golf, we're hiking." In addition, only four Penn golfers made the trip to Yale, meaning that all of their scores had to count. The other schools had five representatives, allowing them to omit their lowest score from the final tally. Despite this shorthandedness and the adverse terrain, freshman standout Stacy Kress posted the highest Penn score, finishing in a tie for 36th in the tournament. "She had her head together and went out there knowing what she wanted to accomplish," Miller said. Even though the team placed towards the bottom of the bracket, it did finish about 60 strokes better than it did in the Ivy League Championship a year ago and team members intend to continue improving in the future. Though a long term project, Penn's immediate challenge will take place in Princeton, N.J., this weekend for the Princeton Invitational. Miller and her teammates are excited about playing on a course that is not only more familiar, but more forgiving. The senior explained that the massive greens at Yale caused short-game problems for the women who were not accustomed to attempting long putts -- sometimes from as far out as 40 feet -- on any other course. Although Princeton promises to be an easier task than Yale and the players expect to further improve their game, the Quakers are quick to point out that new golfers are always welcome. Coach Francis Vaughn began to recruit women's players for Penn a couple years ago and the process has proven very rewarding as a record number of high school seniors have already expressed interest in next year's squad. Junior Jen Schraut, who scored second best after Kress among the Quakers in the Yale tournament, explained a big role that women golfers have at Penn . "We are helping develop a program that will hopefully be around for a long time," she said.
(09/23/99 9:00am)
This fall, the daily 30-minute trek to and from the Philadelphia Cricket Club practice site has seemed a lot shorter for one group of commuters this year than it has in the past. That's because the members of the Penn women's golf team -- which has existed as a club team for several years -- now proudly travel to the facility knowing they are participating in a varsity sport. The history of women's golf at Penn does not take long to recount but its meteoric rise in the last few years merits attention. Female golfers did not even begin to play on any level at Penn until the mid-1990s and even then they mixed with the men's team, participating strictly on a club basis. Three factors in particular are responsible for advancing the status of the team to varsity -- a $250,000 donation from the Pappas family, a genuine interest among women on campus in the sport and a capable and well-respected coach willing to capitalize on the opportunity. The team will be coached by men's team coach Francis Vaughn, an excellent golfer in his own right who was once ranked the sixth best amateur in the country by Golf Digest. Vaughn said that there will be no more pressure on the team to succeed than there was when it was a club sport. He has set team goals in terms of enjoyment and progress rather than scores and said he expects this year's squad "to improve greatly from last year's team." Senior captain Natasha Miller shares this viewpoint and sees the shift to varsity as a completely positive experience. Whereas in the past there was a lesser sense of competition and fewer expectations, she said, "It feels like we're actually doing something now." With Miller, juniors Jen Schraut and Karen Pearlman, sophomore Victoria Entine and freshman Stacy Kress round out the 1999-2000 club. The four upperclassmen are all entering their second golf season, while Kress holds the distinction of being one of Penn's first women's golf recruits ever. The team expects Kress to be productive despite her young age. "The addition of Stacy will help our club immensely," Vaughn said. Indeed, the Baltimore native brings an impressive track record with her to Penn. She has previously participated in numerous junior and women's amateur tournaments. In addition, she won the Woodholme Country Club championship in her hometown the past two years, becoming the youngest woman ever to do so. An injury to a muscle near her ribcage sidelined Kress during the summer, but she is now healthy and ready to open the season at the Yale Invitational in New Haven, Conn., this weekend. Travel -- such as a 3 1/2-hour trip to New Haven -- is just one new aspect presented to freshmen athletes such as Kress. That is when Miller's leadership is best displayed. Kress explained that the captain is even more valuable off the course than on; Miller is willing to assist her with things such as deciding what classes to take and where to locate certain buildings. In fact, Miller's leadership extends so far that she is actually tutoring a player on the men's team who was having difficulty with a class. While Miller also attributed much of the women's team's successful chemistry to last year's captain Lindsay Stern, all the players share a great bond with their mentor. "I really think that Coach Vaughn has done an amazing job putting the team together since he's done it all by himself," Kress said.
