By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

Winning never gets old. Victoria Liu can certainly attest to that. The Vancouver resident, who has just started her senior year at Princeton University, won again this past weekend. Liu captured her team’s home event, the Princeton Invitational, for what was her eighth collegiate win.

Liu shot rounds of 68, 72 and 71 to finish the tourney at two-under par and one shot ahead of teammate Catherine Rao. Liu and her Princeton teammates captured the team title by 30 shots over second-place Georgetown.

“Every win is a great one,” Liu said in a telephone interview from Princeton, N.J. “I am super happy to get another one at our home course. This is the last time I get to play a home game. Getting the team win as well makes it extra special.”

Liu said she never dreamed that she’d have eight wins at this point of her collegiate career. “To be honest, going to college I didn’t think about how many times I would win,” she said. “It’s so unpredictable and I didn’t know what to expect as a freshman. . .My goal is to keep my game sharp and contribute as best I can to the team. If I can snatch individual wins here or there, it’s always good.”

Liu laughed when asked if she can hit double digits for individual wins by the time her senior season ends. “That’s the hope,” she said. “But my main goal this year is I want to have a really good season with my team. I want the team to go as far as possible.”

Liu is not only excelling on the golf course. The computer science major is also acing the academics at her Ivy League school. Her cumulative grade point average at Princeton is 3.80. The win was Liu’s third at the Princeton Invitational. She said a hot putter helped her earn the victory.

“The best part of my game this week was definitely my putting,” she said. “I made a lot of good par save putts from six to 10 feet.”

Click HERE for Princeton U Tigers Women's Golf site.

Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang, who is in her freshman year at Harvard University, tied for 23rd at the Princeton tourney. Her Harvard team finished seventh in the 12-team event.

RED LEAFS FIFTH: Simon Fraser University’s men’s team tied for fifth at the Saint Martin’s University Bishop Invitational at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash. The Red Leafs’ 54-hole team score of two-over par was eight shots behind the winning team from CSU East Bay. Brendan O’Brien was the top SFU player, tying for ninth in the individual competition at two-under par. The University of the Fraser Valley finished ninth at 16-over.

Click HERE for the SFU Men's Golf website. 

Eli Green of UFV tied for fourth at three-under par. Vancouver’s Dylan Bercan, who plays for the University of Hawaii-Hilo, also tied for fourth. SFU and UBC-Okanagan are both competing this week at the Western Washington University Invitational at Bellingham Golf & Country Club. Vernon’s Ryan Vest, the runner-up in the last three B.C. Junior Boys Championships, will make his collegiate debut for Western Washington in that event.

TEAM CANADA: Langley’s Clairey Lin will be part of Team Canada 1 at this week’s World Junior Girls Golf Championship at Credit Valley Golf & Country Club in Mississauga, Ont. The 14-year-old Lin earned her spot on the team through the Team Canada NextGen Selection Camp qualifying tournament. She was also runner-up at this tear’s Canadian Junior Girls Championship.

Click HERE to follow World Junior Gilrs Championship scoring. 

Lin will be joined on Team Canada 1 by Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., and Aphrodite Deng of Calgary. Team Canada is the defending champion in the event, which features 24 teams from 23 different countries. Canada also has a second team entered that includes Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., and Lindsay McGrath and Nobelle Park, both of Oakville, Ont.

MISSISSIPPI CALLING: The PGA TOUR’s fall season resumes this week with the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss. Adam Svensson of Surrey and Roger Sloan of Merritt are both in the field. The tournament, previously known as the Deposit Guaranty Classic, has four Canadians as past champions. Mackenzie Hughes won it in 2022, Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor earned his first PGA TOUR win there in 2014, B.C.’s Richard Zokol won it in 1992 and the late Dan Halldorson was the 1986 champion.

BACK IN ASIA: Kimberley’s Jared du Toit returned to the Asian Tour and tied for 48th at the Yeagander TPC event in Taiwan. Du Toit finished the tournament at four-under par, 17 shots behind winner Suteepat Prateeptienchai of Thailand. Du Toit earned his Asian Tour status at qualifying school early this year and played several events in the spring. He then concentrated on the Korn Ferry Tour, but did not make that tour’s playoffs. He’s now back in Asia and will play as many events as he can get into. He is in the field for this week’s $1-million US Mercuries Taiwan Masters at Taiwan Golf & Country Club.

FAST START: Delta’s Max Osten, a freshman at University of Maryland East Shore, got his collegiate career off to a nice start with a tie for second finish at the Thomas W. Dortch Jr. HBCU Hall of Fame Golf Invitational in Stone Mountain, Ga. Osten finished the 36-hole event at six-over par, six shots behind winner Jules De Reu of University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.

QUESTIONABLE DECISION: You can count Golf Channel anchor Rich Lerner as among those who feel that Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor should have been selected to play in the Presidents Cup by International team captain Mike Weir. “I cannot help but think Nick Taylor should have been there,” Lerner said on Golf Channel’s Live from the Presidents Cup show.

“It’s not like Nick Taylor would have been replacing one of the top five players in the world. They only have one top 10 player in this lineup and that’s Hideki (Matsuyama) at No. 7. Nick Taylor is a forever stone cold legend in this country for what he did in 2023. He made a 72-footer that they will replay for the rest of their days here in the Great North to win the Canadian Open.”

MOST IMPROVED: Delta’s Mary Parsons has won the Most Improved Player Award on the Annika All Pro Women’s Tour. Parsons had one win and five top-10 finishes on this year’s tour. Parsons’ fine play on that tour earned her an exemption into the second stage of the LPGA Tour’s Qualifying Series, which goes Oct. 15-18 in Venice, Fla.

CHIP SHOTS: The first stage of PGA TOUR Q-School will be played at 13 different sites in the month of October. Six second-stage sites are scheduled for late November and early December. The final stage goes Dec. 12-15 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. . .Vancouver’s Leah John is in the field for this week’s season-ending Epson Tour Championship at Indian Wells in southern California. John begins the week 55th on the tour’s points list. She needs to get inside the top 35 to earn a spot in the final stage of LPGA Tour Q-School.