SFU men win battle of B.C.; Vanessa Zhang, Luna Lu top 10 at Princeton Invitational; Struggles continue for Hadwin and Svensson
It was a great week for a pair of British Columbia collegiate golfers as Nanaimo’s Matthew Wilson and Sienna Harder of Langley each earned individual NCAA Division 1 wins.
Harder, a second-year player for the UBC Thunderbirds, birdied five of her final six holes to win the Seattle U Pat Lesser Harbottle Invitational at Tacoma Golf Club. Wilson, in his second year at Weber State University in Utah, was co-medallist at the Dolenc Invitational in Madison, Ill.
Harder’s 72-hole total of four-under par was good for a two-shot win over Esther Yoo of Gonzaga and Tsara Ralamboarison of Seattle University. Harder wasn’t thinking about winning the individual title until very late in her final round.
“I was checking scores, but more for how our team was doing because we were trying to get third place,” she said in an interview. “I was one-over after 12 holes and I made two birdies and I was like, okay, I am back in it and helping a little bit more.”
It wasn’t until she birdied the 16th and 17th holes that Harder fully realized she was in contention. “I was more thinking about breaking 70 because I had never done that before,” she said. “I kind of thinned my wedge coming into 18 and had like a 60-footer so I was just trying to two-putt and it went in.”
Harder, who closed with a four-under 68, is just the fifth UBC player to win a NCAA Division 1 event in the history of the program. Her play helped the T-Birds finish third at the 15-team Harbottle event. Keira Hou finished sixth at even-par. Katherine Hao, Jessica Ng and Sarah Yang also competed for UBC.
“Sienna had the blinders on, I don’t think she realized she was going to win,” said assistant coach Jeff Buder. “She made that long putt on 18 without any emotion at all and she just picked the ball out of the hole and walked off the green like no big deal.”
Meanwhile, Wilson made 20 birdies in his three rounds at the Dolenc Invitational, where he fired rounds of 65, 68 and 66 to finish at 14-under par. That left him tied with Samuel Johnson of Idaho.
CARSWELL HOT: It was a battle of B.C. of sorts at the Western Washington Invitational, where the Simon Fraser University Red Leafs closed with a superb final round to edge UBC-Okanagan to win the team title. The Red Leafs posted a team score of nine-under in the third and final round to finish the tourney at Bellingham Country Club at 14-under, three shots ahead of UBC-Okanagan.
SFU’s Denby Carswell closed with six-under 66 to finish in a four-way tie for first at seven-under par with Ryan Vest of UBC-Okanagan, Jacob Torres of Hawaii-Hilo and Fisher Ransom of Vanguard. Torres won a sudden-death playoff on the third extra hole. Junsu Im, Max Corcoran, Brendan O’Brien, Justin Bjornson were the other members of the winning SFU team. UBC and the University of Victoria also competed in the Bellingham event. UBC finished fourth, while UVic was fifth.
JERSEY STRONG: Two British Columbians finished in the top 10 at the Princeton Invitational in New Jersey. Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang, a second-year player at Harvard, was solo fourth at even-par. Burnaby’s Luna Lu, who is in her first year at Princeton, finished ninth at three-over to help the Tigers win their home tourney by nine shots. Surrey’s Bonnie Zhai, in her third year at Harvard, cracked the top 10 with a tie-for-17th finish. Lu and her Princeton teammates head to Scotland for next week’s St Andrews Links Collegiate, which will be played at the Jubilee and Old Courses.
STILL STRUGGLING: The struggles continue for Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford and Surrey’s Adam Svensson, who both missed the cut at the PGA TOUR’s Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss. Hadwin dropped four spots to 143rd on the FedEx Cup points list, while Svensson fell one spot to 163rd.
They need to move into the top 100 to remain fully exempt in 2026 and inside the top 125 to retain conditional status. Only five fall events remain on the schedule and Hadwin and Svensson will only get to play in four of them. Neither player drew into this week’s event, the Baycurrent Classic in Yokohama, Japan.
HALL OF FAMERS: The staff at Point Grey Golf & Country Club did a wonderful job of playing host to last week’s B.C. Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony and dinner. The four new Hall of Fame members — Dave Mick, Phyllis Laschuk, Bryn Parry and Kris Jonasson — were marched into the dining room by a Scottish piper. B.C. Golf Museum curator Mike Riste and television personality Dawn Chubai co-emceed the sold-out event. Mick, Laschuk and Parry were inducted as players, while Jonasson, the retiring chief executive officer of British Columbia Golf, became the first inductee in a new builder category.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald tied for 55th at the Korn Ferry Tour’s Compliance Solutions Championship in Owasso, Okla. Macdonald will enter this week’s season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort in Indiana sitting 50th on the points list. The top 20 players after that event earn PGA TOUR cards for 2026. Macdonald has clinched his exempt status on the 2026 Korn Ferry Tour.
EPSON ENDING: A solid season ended with disappointment for Vancouver Leah’s John, who missed the cut at the season-ending Epson Tour Championship at the Indian Wells Golf Resort in southern California. John, who won her first Epson Tour event this past summer, dropped two spots to finish the season 22nd on the points list. The top 15 players were awarded LPGA Tour status for 2026.
John does receive a consolation prize of sorts. By finishing in the top 35, she is exempt into the final stage of LPGA Tour qualifying. Kelowna’s Megan Osland, who earned an exemption into the event as a result of her play this season on the Annika All Women’s Pro Tour, tied for 19th. Delta’s Mary Parsons tied for 54th to finish the season 107th on the points list.
TOP 10 FOR CANADA: The Canadian team of Lauren Kim of Surrey, Vanessa Borovilos of Etobicoke, Ont., and Michele Xing of Richmond Hill, Ont., finished 10th in the 36-team Women’s World Amateur Team Championship in Singapore. The United States won the title on a tie-breaker with South Korea. Both teams finished at 18-under par, but the U.S. won the tie-break as it had the lowest non-counting score from its third player. Canada finished the championship at seven-under par. Kim, a third-year player at the University of Texas, tied for 29th in the individual race at one-under par. China’s Xing Yu won by four shots with a score of 13-under par.
ON TO MATCH PLAY: Nanoose Bay’s Shelly Stouffer and Nonie Marler of Vancouver have both qualified for the Round of 64 at the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship. Marler tied for 28th in the 36-hole stroke play portion of the competition at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach, Calif. Stouffer had to survive a 12-player playoff for the final four spots to move on. She did that by birdieing the first extra hole.
CHIP SHOT: Victoria’s Jeevan Sihota and James Allenby of Langley each fired four-under 67s to share the win at the Vancouver Golf Tour’s Gatekeeper Systems Final at Beach Grove Golf Club in Tsawwassen. They each earned $1,250.