LÉVIS, Que. – The dynasty continues for the UBC Women's Golf program, as for the ninth tournament in a row the blue and gold emerged as winners at the Golf Canada Canadian University/College Championship.
The T-Birds took the title by 17 strokes, shooting +1 as a team on Friday to finish at +2 overall for the tournament, which was shortened from four rounds to three following weather issues that plagued the middle two days of the event. Despite that, the women's squad remained remarkably consistent as they scored three of the four lowest single-round team scores of the week.
"I think we made a good game plan in terms of balls off the tee and targets into the green, and it just looked like they were swinging free," said UBC Golf Program Advisor
Cory Renfrew. "The greens were big so some long putts, but they all came determined…if there was a bad hole they would bounce back pretty soon."
Individually, the Thunderbirds dominated the leaderboard with their four golfers all taking up spots in the tournament's top five.
Katherine Hao led the way at -1 to take her third individual crown of the season, following the Canada West Championship in October and the Cascade Classic in March. The standout rookie shot over-par on just eight of her 54 holes on the week, and scored an eagle midway through her final round.
Elsewhere,
Jessica Ng finished third (+4) in her final competition as a Thunderbird.
Keira Hou (+5) placed fourth while
Sienna Harder (+6) was fifth. Julia Alexander-Carew of the UBC Okanagan Heat was the only player to break up the T-Bird hegemony, as she placed second (+1).
"They've worked hard, they've really come together at the end of this season, and worked hard all season," added Renfrew on the women's team. "I know they had what they would consider a disappointing finish to the NAIAs and they were determined to not let that happen again. They all stepped up and played for each other."
On the men's side, the Thunderbirds had a tough third round, one that was split into chunks on two different days following the suspension of play due to rain on Thursday. Unable to keep their momentum from Wednesday going, the 'Birds slipped from second to third place (-6), finishing three strokes back of Montreal (-9) and 13 back of champions UBC Okanagan (-19).
The play of
Aneesh Kaura was the biggest highlight of the final round for UBC, as the Calgary native tied for the second-lowest final round score at the event (-3), and finished the week in third place on the individual leaderboard (-7). Montreal's Anthony Jomphe (-11) jumped UBCO's Oakley Mayner (-8) for the individual win.
Manpreet Lalh ended the week tied for eighth (-3), while
Jake Houston tied for 22nd (+2),
Leighton Wright tied for 39th (+7) and
Shunkichi Yamamoto tied for 76th (+16).
"They're grinders, they're battlers as well," said Renfrew about the men's team. "They obviously had to push a bit in that third round after playing in some very tough weather yesterday to start the third round where they got a lot of golf in, and then all of a sudden figured out that would be the last of it.
"We're super proud of them, they're a young team as well that came together and they had an incredible second round to get back into it. We're disappointed that we couldn't get another round for them but there are a lot of positives to take forward for sure."
Following the conclusion of a season full of transition, Renfrew sees the two T-Bird squads as having plenty of great things to build upon.
"Both teams are extremely young. We're really looking forward to the next couple years of development for sure. Both teams get along really well so the team chemistry is already there – they fight for each other and play as a unit, so we're really looking forward to sharpening their skills. They're going to mature as people and as golfers, and the coaching staff can't wait for the next couple years to see how they come together."
