VERONA, NY – The University of Rochester golf team won a back-and-forth battle with St. Lawrence University to claim the 2024 Liberty League Tournament title on Sunday afternoon at the Turning Stone Resort Shenendoah Golf Club.
 
Rochester as a team finished with a three-day score of 870, shooting 1-under par round of 287 on the final day, vaulting past the second round leader St. Lawrence (873) for the three-stroke victory. Skidmore College ended third at 874. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (891), NYU (899), Clarkson University (92) and Hobart College (950) wrapped up the seven-team field.
 
The Liberty League title is Rochester fourth in the conference and first since UR claimed the crown in the 2016-17 season when the championship format was 36 holes in both the fall and winter season.
 
UR's win on Sunday earns the Yellowjackets the Liberty League's automatic berth into the NCAA Division III Tournament, which takes place from May 14-17 at Boulder Creek Golf Club in Boulder City, Nevada. The NCAA appearance will be Rochester's 24th overall as a team and first since 2017. UR also had individual golfers compete at nationals in the 2018 and 2021 seasons.
 
Senior Tom Liu finished the tournament tied with Skidmore's Evan Forrest and St. Lawrence's Jimmy King for overall medalist honors at 2-under, 214. The three played a playoff to decide the individual event championship.
 
In the playoff, Liu carded a bogey on the first hold and was out of contention. On the second extra hole, King emerged victorious after a poor drive did Forrest in, leading to a score over par.
 
Liu's final round score was his second best of the 2023-24 campaign. After recording eight straight pars to start the round, Liu birdied the par-3 ninth to finish 1-under over his opening nine holes. Liu made it back-to-back birdies with a circle on his card on the par-5 tenth before four more pars brought him to the 15th hole.
 

On number 15, Liu made his only bogey of the round, but bounced right back with a birdie on the par-4 16th hole to reach 2-under. The senior closed his round with two pars on a tough final two holes, lifting the Yellowjackets to victory in the team event.
 
Overall, all five Yellowjackets wrapped up the 54-hole event in the top-15 golfers in the 35-player field.
 
Fellow senior Kerry Wang matched Liu with 2-under round of 70 on Sunday, tying for the team lead. Wang was stellar on the front nine, shooting 3-under for his first five holes. After a bogey on nine, Wang rebounded with back-to-back birdies on holes 11 and 12.
 
He ended the back nine at even, with the 70 matching his second best round of the season. He ended in a tie for 13th overall at 223 for the tournament and was third in the field with 11 birdies over the three days.
 
First-year Shibo Wang captured fifth place overall in the tournament and ended his first Liberty League Tournament with a 1-over round of 73. That, coupled with scores of 74 and 70 from days one and two put Wang's overall score at 217, +1 for the tournament.
 
Sunday's round for the rookie Wang featured a birdie on the second hole and an eagle on the par-5 fourth hole. Wang also ended the event with 36 total pars of the 54 total, ranking second to his teammate Liu (38 pars) in that catergory.
 
Graduate student Brendan Frain was Rochester's fourth scoring golfer on Sunday, firing a 2-over par round of 74. Frain completed the tournament with 223 score to match K. Wang in a tie for 13th place overall. On Sunday's scorecard, Frain started quick with two birdies on his first two holes. He added two birdies over the first three holes on the back nine as well.
 
Wrapping up Rochester's winning lineup was junior Gary Pan who carded a 75 (+3) on the par-72, 6,763-yard course layout. Pan's final round featured mostly pars, 13 of them, along with two birdies. The junior finished the tournament in a tie for 10th at 221.
 
Sunday's round was filled with drama, as the lead was tied or changed hands multiple times over the final nine holes between Rochester and St. Lawrence.
 
Shortly after the turn, the Yellowjackets were up by three and looking good after the team notched a total of five birdies over holes ten through twelve.
 
With roughly four holes to play, St. Lawrence battled back with some birdies and coupled with a few bogeys from Rochester, the two teams were tied at +2 overall.
 
A pair of Yellowjacket bogeys dropped UR two strokes behind less than fifteen minutes later. After St. Lawrence dropped back to 4-over as a team, the Yellowjackets also took another bogey and remained behind by one with two holes left.
 
Another Saints bogey, paired with an offsetting bogey and birdie for Rochester saw the two teams tied at +5 with just three golfers left on the course for each side. Another hole finished up with the Yellowjackets dropping behind once again by a stroke.
 
A St. Lawrence golfer ended up making a double-bogey on the 18th and final hole of his round to swing the momentum and the lead in Rochester's favor by one with just two players left on the course.
 
SLU made another bogey to give Rochester some breathing room, sitting up by two and as the final two golfers finished up on the 18th, the 'Jackets gained another stroke on the runner-up Saints to reach the final three-stroke margin.
 
Rochester's 287 score matched its total from round two, which was a season-best and a top-10 single-round score in team history. The minus-1 overall score from the weekend rounds were just the eighth and ninth team rounds under par since the creation of the UR golf program in the 1930's.