Sihota, Osland survive Q school; Taylor joins Husky Hall of Fame; UBC men, women sweep Idaho event
(October 20,25) - Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang should have Harvard’s athlete of the week honours wrapped up. All she did this past week was win twice.
Zhang, in her second year at the Ivy League school, capped her remarkable week by winning the Lady Blue Hen Invitational on Sunday at Rehoboth Beach Country Club in Delaware. She won that event in impressive fashion, beating the 69-player field by seven shots with a 54-hole total of six-under par.
That win came just five days after Zhang won the Quinnipiac Classic in Wallingford, Conn. Zhang carded rounds of 72 and 71 and won by six shots at that event, which was reduced to 36 holes due to inclement weather.
“It’s definitely been a great week,” Zhang said over the phone. “I think it was good to get the momentum going from that first tournament. I literally had one day back at school before I went right back out there competing again. I was able to just stay in the competitive mindset, so that helped.”
Zhang had to battle the elements —heavy rain at the Quinnipiac event and blustery wind at Delaware — as well as an illness that sapped her of energy.
“I was also sick for the second tournament,” she said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stand up for 36 holes the first day. I was just happy to get through that first day. It was kind of a blur between shots.”
Zhang, a graduate of Crofton House School in Vancouver, is picking up where she left off last year. She had four top-five finishes in her freshman year at Harvard and won the Ivy League individual championship. Zhang also set a Harvard scoring record with a stroke average of 72.37.
The Delaware tournament concluded Harvard’s fall season and Zhang is anxious to catch up on her schoolwork. She is majoring in applied mathematics.
“I’ll be excited to get it going again in the spring,” she said.
“We have got a really good tournament lineup for the spring and I am excited to play against some really good teams like Texas and Ohio State. That will be very exciting.”
Q-SCHOOL SURVIVORS: It just wouldn’t be Q-school without some final-round stress. Victoria’s Jeevan Sihota and Megan Osland of Kelowna had to endure lots of it as they survived their respective pressure-cookers. Sihota was competing at a PGA TOUR first-stage Q-school site in New Mexico where the top 19 and ties moved on to second stage.
Sihota was comfortably inside the number through three rounds, but began his final round with three straight bogeys to fall out of the top 19. He arrived at the 17th tee needing to birdie his final two holes to climb back into the top 19. So that is exactly what he did. “They had moved the tee up on the par 4 17th to make it reachable and so I went for the green and I got up and down for birdie,” Sihota said in an interview.
His work was only half done. He still needed to birdie the par 5 18th and that did not come easy. “I drove it into the rough and it was very thick so I hit a 6-iron slightly to the right and it ended up right under a tree,” Sihota said. “I hit a great shot from there. I only had a little bit of a swing, but I was able to get it onto the green and I made a 14-foot putt for my birdie.”
It was on that same green, with the same hole location, where Sihota missed a 10-footer birdie the year before to miss advancing by one shot. “It was a pretty frustrating start, but you have to keep trying,” Sihota said. “It was tough. It feels like it’s slipping away, but I just kept trying to stay calm. It worked out at the end of the day. It wasn’t as smooth as we would have liked, but sometimes those are the best ones.”
Osland, who was competing at the LPGA Tour Qualifying Series in Venice, Fla., was also in solid shape heading into the final round. She was tied for 10th at seven-under and the top 45 and ties advanced to final stage. Like Sihota, she had a rocky start to her final round and had some anxious moments as she fell perilously close to dropping outside the top 45.
She ended up right on the number, at three-under par, following her final round 76. Osland advances to the Q-Series finals in December, where she will have the opportunity to earn a LPGA Tour card for 2026. At worst, Osland will have good status on next year’s Epson Tour.
Richmond’s Chris Crisologo was not as fortunate as Osland and Siohota. He closed with three-under 68 at a first-stage site in New Jersey but missed advancing by three shots. Crisologo will have some status on the 2026 PGA Tour Americas circuit.
Vancouver’s Jake Lane is scheduled to compete at a first-stage site in North Carolina this week.
T-BIRDS SOAR: The UBC men’s and women’s teams swept the College of Idaho Invitational at Timberstone Golf Course in Caldwell, Id. The UBC men won by 29 shots with a 54-hole score of 11-under par, while the women’s margin of victory was 35 shots with a 36-hole total of 21-over par. First-year player Leighton Wright, who was playing as UBC’s sixth man and was not part of the team score, won the men’s individual title in impressive fashion.
Wright’s eight-under total beat the field by five shots. UBC’s Forrest Van Alstine was second, while fellow T-Birds Brett Stouffer, Aneesh Kaura and Jake Houston tied for third at one-under par. The UBC women were led by Keira Hou, who lost the individual title in a playoff to Reece Garey of College of Idaho. Both players finished the event at one-under par.
The rest of the UBC team all finished in the top 10. Grace Yao was third, Sienna Harder was sixth, Jessica Ng tied for seventh and Morgan Best was ninth. Next up for UBC are this week’s Canada West Championships at Chilliwack Golf Club.
SEEING RED: The Simon Fraser University Red Leafs were also south of the border last week. The SFU women finished sixth in the 21-team NCAA Division II Regional Preview Invite in Pueblo, Colo. Dana Smith and Anaya Bhandal both tied for 19th. The SFU men were fourth in the 16-team Otter Invitational in Seaside, Calif. Justin Bjornson tied for ninth at four-over par to lead the Red Leafs.
HUSKY HALL: Congratulations to Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor, who last week was inducted into the University of Washington’s Husky Hall of Fame. “My four years at UW hold some of my favourite moments,” Taylor said in remarks at the induction ceremony. “The team trips, the late-night monopoly duels, endless Mario Kart, these were the good old days. “
Golf is an individual game, but for a short time we had a team of brothers. We pushed each other to be better and made bonds that are here for a lifetime. Some of my best friends almost 20 years later are teammates that I had here. Success is never achieved alone. To all the coaches, teammates who pushed me, supported me and believed in me, this award belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me.”
Taylor competed for the Huskies from 2007 through 2010 and rose to No. 1 in the world amateur rankings. He won four tournaments, had 24 top-10s and in 2010 received the Ben Hogan Award, which is presented annually to the top male collegiate golfer in the U.S.
TOUR TALK: The PGA TOUR’s fall season resumes at this week’s Bank of Utah Championship at Black Desert Resort in Ivins, Utah. Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin and Adam Svensson of Surrey are both in the field and in desperate need of some FedEx Cup points. Hadwin enters the event 143rd on the points list, while Svensson is 164th. They need to get inside the top 100 to remain fully exempt in 2026.
CHIP SHOT: Langley’s Erin Lee, in her third year at Long Beach State University, tied for 11th at last week’s Golf Iconic Classic in La Cruces, N.M. Lee was the runner-up at this past summer’s B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship at Victoria Golf Club.