BC's Vanessa Zhang Cruises To Record-setting Ivy League Championship
(April 21, 2025) - Lots of birdies and very few mistakes added up to a record-setting performance for Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang, who went wire-to-wire to win the Ivy League Championship at Royal Palm Golf Course in Naples, Fla.
Zhang, who is completing her first season at Harvard University, made it look easy as she recorded rounds of 68, 67 and 70. Her 11-under total set an Ivy League Championship record and beat the field by five shots.
“I came second at our first (spring) tournament, then eighth and then second again. I kept telling myself, it’s going to come, it’s going to come. And I was, like, if there’s ever a time to do it, it’s now. It was really special to get it done with my team.”
The win gives Zhang an opportunity to play as an individual in next month’s NCAA regionals where she will have an opportunity to play her way into the NCAA Championship tourney.
No matter what happens the rest of the way, Zhang said her first year at Harvard has been an incredible experience. “It’s really been everything I could ask for,” she said. “I don’t think I could be happier anywhere else. I am really happy that I chose Harvard.
“I think it’s really the people here that make it great, my support system is really so special to me, my coach, my team and also the friends I have made off the golf course. Each of them has something really special about them that always makes me want to keep learning and be a better version of myself.”
Zhang’s teammates, who include fellow British Columbians Bonnie Zhai of Surrey and Michelle Liu of Vancouver, won’t be travelling to the NCAA regionals. Harvard finished second to Princeton in the team competition at the Ivy League Championship, which ends their season.
All of her teammates stormed the green when Zhang clinched the individual title and doused her with water. Lots of it. “I hugged my playing partners, turned around and it was like Splash Mountain,” Zhang said with a laugh. “There was so much water everywhere I turned.” Zhang, who made 16 birdies during the week, will find out on April 23 what regional site she will be playing at.
Vancouver’s Victoria Liu, a senior at Princeton University who is a two-time Ivy League champion, finished fourth in the individual competition to help the Tigers win the team competition and advance to regionals.