Alice Chen Receives Inaugural Women's Player Of Year Award
Alice Chen of Princeton, the most prolific female golfer in the history of the New Jersey State Golf Association, was formally presented the inaugural Women’s Player of the Year Award on Monday, December 22, at NJSGA headquarters at Galloping Hill Golf Course in Kenilworth,
Coleen Luker, chairperson of the NJSGA Women’s Committee, made the presentation. Chen edged Women’s Amateur champion Taylor Totland of Hollywood in Player of the Year points, 575-550. Chen won the NJSGA Women’s Public Links championship in 2014 and was runner-up by one shot to Christina Parsells of Baltusrol in the Junior Girls Championship, an event she won the previous two years. She was also semifinalist at the Women’s Amateur , an event she won in 2013, the year she repeated as NJSGA Junior champion.
Chen, who graduated Montgomery High School, is a freshman teammate of Totland’s at Furman University.
Chen, playing out of Neshanic Valley, said her experiences in winning NJSGA championships and being part of New Jersey’s victorious three-woman team at the 2013 U.S. State Team Championship (where she tied for low individual), have led to success at the college level.
“Being around the best players and the experience of playing and succeeding at the state level definitely prepared me for playing in college,” said Chen, who is about to enter the spring semester of her freshman year of Furman.
“Sometimes I think back on all the success in 2013, and the way we ended the season by winning the U.S. State Team Championship, and I ask myself “Did that really happen?” “
Chen was joined on the New Jersey State Team, sponsored by the NJSGA, by captain Tara Fleming of New Jersey National and Cindy Ha of Valley Brook. Chen was to be presented her Player of the Year Award at the NJSGA/NJPGA Celebration of Golf in October at Trump National G.C. in Bedminster but was already away at Furman.
“Our intention there was to put forth our very best effort and enjoy our time there. God put the pieces together and blessed us with the win,” Chen stated.
In the spring of 2014, Chen fired a 7-under 65, to win her second New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association Tournament of Champions at Cherry Valley Country Club. She also repeated as Group IV champ with a seven-under-par 65 at her former home course, Cherry Valley, with the best score in the tournament’s 14-year history. She won her fourth Somerset County title at Neshanic Valley with a 71.
Chen enjoyed a brilliant summer of golf in 2013. She won the New Jersey high school individual championship and earned scholastic player of the year honors. Chen then won the New Jersey State Golf Association’s Women’s Amateur and Junior Girls’ Championships, and tacked on a victory at the American Junior Golf Association’s Lessing’s AJGA Classic, also conducted in the Garden State.
Chen, who led New Jersey to its first title in the 10th USGA State Team Championship on September 19, 2013, was featured in the October 7, 2013, issue of Sports Illustrated magazine.
“It’s very fitting that Alice Chen is the first winner of the NJSGA Women’s Player of the Year Award,” Luker said. “We felt she should’ve won a Player of the Year award following her outstanding season in 2013, so this award was really created by her.
“Alice has been the face of NJSGA golf for at least three years. She is an outstanding individual who sets a great example and makes other golfers feel very welcome. When we had the Junior Championship at Royce Brook Golf Course, where she grew up, those young golfers there just idolized her.”
In her first semester at Furman University, located in Greenville, S.C., Chen was the only freshman to compete for the varsity in all four fall tournaments, two of which Furman won. At both the Lady Paladins Invitational (hosted by Furman) and the Golfweek Program Challenge. Chen placed seventh in both events while Totland was the individual champion at the Lady Paladins.
Furman participated in a Birdies for Water campaign at the Lady Paladins Invitational, raising over $10,000 as part of $26,000 overall raised to benefit Betsy King's Golf Fore Africa Charity. After winning the two events, Furman was ranked No. 13 in the nation by Golfweek/Sagarin rankings.
“There’s a lot of completion within our team, but there’s a unique bond with my teammates in the way we are always rooting for each other no matter what,” Chen said. “It’s nice that the team is behind you and depending on you. I’m very excited about the spring season.”
As part of her holiday break, Chen and her parents will travel to Orlando in January and meet with her swing coach, Andrew Park, before returning to school.
Chen participates in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Furman and in November taught bible studies at a middle school in Myrtle Beach.
“I enjoy the FCA. I meet other varsity athletes I can relate to a share a common bond. At times, I have been a little homesick, but it is a good experience in being independent and living life on your own. I’m still either playing of practicing golf every day.
“I’m working on driving it a little further and still working on my putting and short game,” she said.
