Ali Berman '08, who finished second for the team, tied for 38th with a score of 94-89-183. Fellow sophomore Kristin Beneski finished 66th with a 104-102-206, and senior co-captain Melissa Sidman '06 was right behind her in 69th place with a total of 110-101-211. As the tournament's silver lining, senior Callie Wheeler shot 116-128-244 for a 77th place finish.
According to Harper, most of the women felt they could have registered stronger individual scores. "It wasn't the best weekend for scoring for any of us, except for Callie Wheeler," said Harper. "She scored five strokes better on her Saturday score than last weekend."
Harper acknowledged that navigating the course, which was used for the 2004 Women's U.S. Open, proved challenging for the Amherst team. "The Orchards is a really tough course," she said, "Unless you can keep the ball in the fairway, it's guaranteed that you'll be struggling to get up and down for par."
In spite of this difficulty, though, the Jeffs appreciated both the course's beauty, as well as the company of their hosts, the women from neighboring Mt. Holyoke College.
"Even though it's hard terrain, the Orchards is incredibly beautiful," said Harper. "I had fun this weekend playing with the Mt. Holyoke girls. Their team and ours have a special bond that adds to the fun of playing golf."
Seeing improvement in the ranks, the women look forward to traveling to Vermont next weekend to play in a new invitational, the NESCAC Champions tournament, hosted by Middlebury College. With two tournaments under their belt, the Jeffs hope to see improvement next weekend as they continue to rebuild their small but scrappy team.
"Hopefully we can all improve our scores next weekend at Middlebury," said Harper.