Yale Women's Golf

Hey there,

Welcome to the official blog of the Yale Women’s Golf Team! My name is Deanna Song and I’m a freshman in Ezra Stiles College (the best residential college at Yale!) from Granger, Indiana. Before we leave for our penultimate tournament of the season, let’s fill you in on what the YWGT has been up to this past month.

Almost exactly a month ago, we left frigid New Haven for our spring training trip in Florida. In short, it was a week filled with wonderful golf, delicious food, and fun times. A big shout out to Mr. and Mrs. Kania and Mrs. Roland – thank you so much for hosting all of us in your lovely home! It was also great seeing you Lissa (DC ’11)! Aside from working on our games at courses like PGA National and The Bear’s Club, we discovered more about one another through games like fishbowl and Cranium. To finish off spring break, we then traveled to Williamsburg, Virginia for the William and Mary C&F Bank Invitational. The team braved tough weather conditions (40 degrees, rainy, and windy) to finish in 6th place. Thanks Lily (PC ’12) for coming to cheer us on! Although we were sad the final round was cancelled, it gave us the opportunity to visit colonial Williamsburg and fill out our March Madness brackets J

More recently, we just got back from the Georgetown Invitational where everybody turned in good scores and we finished in 2nd place as a team. This is a great sign as we head into the final stretch of our season. Thank you Callie (BK ’12) and Cassie (SM ’11) for coming to support us!  

In other news, Yale Men’s Hockey is headed to the NCAA Division I Championship Game!! We hope you will join us in cheering on the team as they compete tomorrow at 7 PM. Also, check our Twitter for updates on Brown and the Masters!

  Until next time,

Hello hello! Dear friends, welcome! My name is Marika and I am a sophomore bringing you the latest news and updates from the YWGT, Yale, and life at Yale. YWGT Training February has been a busy month for all of us on the YWGT. We’ve sprung out of winter hibernation and kicked up our training to more intense levels than before. From golfing in our indoors facility, to workouts with our trainer Emil, to Thursday spinning classes with assistant coach Caitlin, and to biweekly sessions with Judd on learning to “get in the flow”, February has been chock-full of activities bringing us together in preparation for the upcoming season. “We Found Nemo!” The blizzard that hit us in the first week of February was glorious. As a native Californian and Floridian, I hope you can understand my emotions, which ranged from naive wonder, to giddy excitement, to pure happiness. I witnessed these around campus: residential colleges waging snowball wars upon each other, friends and strangers building an enormous snow submarine together on Old Campus, much of Yale sledding down the Divinity School hill using dining hall trays, sparkling icicles, a hot chocolate party, random snow angels lining the JE-Branford walkway, and too many (bad) Finding Nemo jokes/puns. For two hours I even caught up with a friend inside an igloo. Because of the 34" of snowfall we received, Yale and the city of New Haven cancelled two days of classes since roads could not be travelled... a monumental event as cancellations are unheard of in Yale's history! The initial news flash came from the dining hall manager of TD College (who knew she was so in on the “in”?!), even before the YDN could pounce on the story and before Yale College Dean Mary Miller could send out her official email. In that moment I was miserably penning my midterm paper alongside a friend who was cramming for a Spanish exam the next day. So when we heard the news, we stopped, stared into each other’s eyes, both dazed and elated, and roared in excitement with whoever was around us.

Veni, Vidi, Vici! The Proof Three pictures from my Nemo-collection: 1/ View outside my window, post-blizzard morning 2/ Gate closest to my entryway, Jonathan Edwards College. Backstory: In the midst of the blizzard, a bunch of TOO eager Branford students piled an eight foot mountain of snow onto one of the three gates that welcome you to JE. This was rival-enemy residential college BRANFORD in their hooligan attempt to seal us in. 3/ Well, this is my suitemate Ashley… but the main point is how TALL the snow is!

Thoughts on Spring Break ‘13 Midterms and paper deadlines are FINALLY over. The YWGT and the rest of Yale are in a celebratory mood tonight; spring break is just a day away! Our team is leaving tomorrow afternoon to Florida, where we will be staying with our old captain Lissa (DC ‘11). (We can’t wait to see you Lissa!!!!) Upon landing, the next morning we are bringing out the guns and playing in a fun yet competitive matchplay against each other by drawing names out of a hat. On Monday, we will be competing with the University of Richmond and Lehigh University in an organized match. Note: Be forewarned. Our competitiveness is clawing its way out of us like how Rihanna does it in her music videos. While we will be golfing every day and conclude our trip in Virginia at William & Mary’s tournament, we will definitely make a detour to the sandy beaches of Florida if the sharks don’t get us before: http://abcnews.go.com/US/spring-break-shark-swarm-thousands-sharks-shut-florida/story?id=18673202.

My motto for spring break is Relax. I am looking forward to starting my running regimen, reading for pleasure, playing golf on grassy slopes, and basking in the sunlight. (Compare this to my current situation: it is Thursday night before spring break and snowing in New Haven.) Most of all, I am looking forward to bonding with my lovely teammates.

We will note all the times Sun makes random, unrelated remarks during conversations; bask in Alex’s feel-good playlists and her knowledge of fun games and stories; scare the always stoic-faced Deanna and try to get a reaction; deflect all of Moon’s loving advances; coax Michelle to sing for us and show off how good she is at Irish dance; share in karaoke, beauty tips, and peanut butter straight-out-the-jar with Caroline; laugh at Joy’s humorous interpretations of people and situations; and record “Stuff Shreya Says” and provoke Shreya with “Shreya music” to make her demonstrate her hip-shaking dances.

The sun is up, the sky is blue, and New Haven is covered in almost three feet of snow! 

I’m Caroline, a sophomore in Pierson College.  Our beautiful courtyard looks very different under so much snow!  Paths have disappeared, benches are completely covered, and some doors are even blocked by snowdrifts.

The Course at Yale may be better suited to sledding than golfing right now, but the YWGT is in full swing getting ready for the spring season.   Over the past few weeks, we have been lifting several times a week, spinning with our assistant coach Caitlin, and taking yoga classes. 

We also started working with goBlue, a startup that focuses on mindfulness and flow.  Golf is equal parts mental and physical, so being able to increase awareness and release anxiety in the course will be critical as we work toward the Ivy League Championship.  goBlue was founded based on research from the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic.  Read more here: http://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/YTNC/index.aspx.

This fall and winter may have brought some strange weather, but they also brought three fantastic new players to the YWGT!  We could not be more excited to welcome Elisabeth Bernabe, Sandy Wongwiawate, and Julia Yao to the team and the Class of 2017.  We cannot wait to watch them take Yale and Ivy League golf by storm!

The YWGT has so much to look forward to this spring season and beyond.  Stay tuned for updates from Florida, William & Mary, Georgetown, Brown, and the Ivy League Championship!

Hello Everyone!

These past few weeks of season have gone by so fast already. Where to begin?

So, our first tournament was the Dartmouth Invitational 2 weeks ago. And our sophomore trio played so well I was so happy and proud of them! We called it the sophomore surprise- although I hope that their good playing continues so that it doesn’t come as a “surprise”. We ended up winning the tournament and came back with the first place team trophy. Shreya won it individually shooting 1 under, 71, and even par 72! Seriously, this was one of the best starts to the season we could have had. We are all aiming for golf this year. I can feel the Ivy title in our grasp already!

After Dartmouth we had our very own Yale Invitational. There were so many teams present and Chawwadee decided to go ALL OUT for our tournament. We had a huge inflatable bulldog present at the first tee (his name is handsome Dan). We also had a clambake for dinner and an a capella group that our sophomore Caroline is in, come sing for us while we ate! WOOO MIXED COMPANY.  She’s such a great singer!!We didn’t play as well as we would have liked to but did manage to finish in 4th place. I don’t think any of the scores we had to take were above 78 which is an improvement from last year!

Right now we are at Penn state and the first round starts tomorrow. I feel like every time we play this tournament the weather always turns for the worse and it’s always cold and rainy. The practice round today was no exception, but us YWGT girls are tough- we were casually the only ones left on the putting green doing drills after everyone else left. Not because we putted poorly, but because we wanted to! We are hoping to beat Penn in their own turf after they finished in 2nd at our tournament.

With all this golfing going on a lot of us have tons of schoolwork to make up. Most of us travelling this week are doing work as I write this blog. I think it’s also time for me to stop procrastinating and read my social psychology chapters…

So long for now! Wish us luck this weekend