Courtesy of Brian Beard

The women’s golf fall season was one for the record books. For the first time in program history, the team appeared on the NCAA Division III rankings, taking 21st overall. Furthermore, Emily Renoff ’28 took fourth place in the individual category of Division III competitors. With four tournaments, the small but mighty team reached new heights, both as a team and individually.

The Polar Bears came out swinging in their first tournament of the season hosted at the Brunswick Golf Club, the Polar Bear Shootout. Scoring a program low in both the 18-hole and 36-hole totals, the team finished fourth overall in the tournament, placing above NESCAC rivals such as Middlebury College and Amherst College.

Captain Ocean Park ’25 was excited to start the season on such a positive note.

“It was awesome because our program is so young—each year is just leaps and bounds [of improvement],” Park said. “It’s awesome seeing as a senior how far we’ve come as a program since I was a freshman. Seeing the incoming freshmen and how well they started off was super exciting.”

After the team finished in ninth place at the George Phinney Classic hosted by Middlebury, Katie Ng ’28 looked to bounce-back at the Williams Invitational the following weekend.

“I don’t want to be too outcome-oriented. I’d constitute playing well by shooting in the 70s and placing at least top thirty in a tournament,” Ng said. “Playing well would also be the team placing well and being satisfied with how we did.”

Needless to say, the team did more than “play well” at Williams. Emily Renoff ’28 won the tournament, shooting -3, five strokes ahead of the second-place golfer. Ng also finished in the top ten, shooting +7 overall, her best result of the fall season. As a team, the Polar Bears improved by 11 strokes from the first to the second round of the tournament, finishing in fifth out of 22 teams.

While results are what many golfers fixate on, Ng doesn’t want to know how she’s scoring in comparison to the competition while she is on the course.

“I can’t look at the leaderboard, it stresses me out,” Ng said. “I’m not a scoreboard stalker. I know there are some girls on the course that will be looking at the board all the time.”

So when she finished her second round, Ng was just as happy to learn about her success as that of Renoff’s.

“I saw Emily on the course, and I knew that she was playing well, and I knew I was playing well,” Ng said. “But I didn’t have any idea until I finished my round, and I went to my parents, and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, Emily won!’”

The season finished at the Hamilton Fall Invitational, where Shivani Schmulen ’26 finished with a season-high placement of tenth, and the team finished eighth overall out of 14 teams .

Head Coach Stuart Cady, who his players affectionately call ‘Stu’, is incredibly proud of his players and their commitment to their goals this fall season.

“They put in good work each and every time we touched our clubs and were really committed to our practice time and mental game work,” Cady wrote in an email to the Orient. “They had great intents for each week of practice and really focused on getting quality reps. And it showed with the great results that followed both individually and as a team.”

When asked what was his favorite memory from the fall season, Cady had too many choices to narrow it down to one.

“It’s probably just seeing this team continue to get more cohesive through team bonding and team culture,” Cady wrote. “And seeing them play golf that they are happy with.”

After a winter of weight training and “domination in the classroom,” as Cady wrote, the Bears will return to the course in February to touch up on their technique before the spring season begins. In April, there will be a few 36-hole weekend tournaments, followed by the first-ever 54-hole NESCAC championship held in early May at Hamilton College.

Park is excited to compete in the championship for the first time, as the Polar Bears have failed to qualify for the past three years when the championship was only 36 holes.

“It makes sense that the championship would be more rigorous than a normal tournament,” Park said. “It will be our first time competing in the championships because they now allow all NESCAC teams to play.”

Thinking ahead to the spring season, Park is ready to get back on the course with her teammates.

“In the fall, we learned how we all operate and what conditions we best perform under. Going into the spring, we will hit the ground running,” Park said.