The rising fourth-year golfer discusses her All-Ivy season, what she enjoys about the sport, the recent success of the women’s golf team, training and conditioning, hitting a hole-in-one, and the correlation between figure skating and golf.
5 min. read
Rising fourth-year Julie Shin of the women’s golf team recently completed one of the most impressive campaigns in the history of the program.
She competed in eight tournaments and finished the season with a score of 74.7 (+3.09 to par), the lowest on the team. Her 23 rounds tied for tops on the team with rising fourth-year Bridget O’Keefe and rising second-year Claire Lu. Eight of her rounds were at or below par.
Shin, a cognitive science major in the College of Arts & Sciences from Brambleton, Virginia, finished in the top seven four times, including a tie for fifth place at the 36-player Ivy League Championship.
At the conference championship, held in late April at the Royal Palm Golf Club in Naples, Florida, Shin shot a 2-over-par 218, which broke, by five strokes, the 54-hole school record at the event. On day one of the Championship, she shot a 1-under-par 71, and on day two, she shot a 2-under-par 70, making her the first player in program history with two under-par rounds at the same conference championship. Her 2-under-par 70 tied for the low round by a Penn player at the Ivy League Championship, equaling Amanda Chin’s 70 in 2014.
Penn tied for fifth with Yale at the Championship. Shin was named to the All-Championship Team. For the season, she was voted Second-Team All-Ivy.
Penn Today caught up with Shin to discuss her All-Ivy season, what she enjoys about the sport, the success of the women’s golf team, training and conditioning, hitting a hole-in-one, and the correlation between figure skating and golf.
When did you start playing golf? I started playing seriously when I was around 9, but I was introduced to the sport initially probably when I was like 5ish. My dad would take me out a lot. He enjoys the sport a lot so he would practice, and me and my older brother would be alongside him.
What do you enjoy about the sport? I like how individualist is it, despite being on a team. I think it’s a lot more forgiving than other sports in the sense that it’s not very performative compared to figure skating, where you’re given a set time. In figure skating, you build up your entire career for those five minutes, and if you make a mistake, then basically it’s over. But with golf, even if you mess up the first hole, you have so many other holes in the future. I think golf is a great mental-game builder, and I think that’s helped me a lot in other areas besides golf.
How so? Can you expand on that a little bit? I think I’m just more levelheaded when it comes to situations that don’t go the way I originally planned them to. I think because the game of golf is also a lot like that, it prepares me for those kinds of situations.
The women’s golf team has had great success so far during your time here. In 2023, the Quakers won the Ivy League title for only the second time in school history and the first time in 13 years. Last year, you placed third. To what do you credit the team’s success? Honestly, I think our team chemistry is very, very unique. When I observe other women’s golf teams, I feel like our team is definitely the closest. We have so much fun together and they feel like genuinely a second family, and I think everyone can say the same. I think it’s very special and it just makes the sport so much more fun. I think that’s really special about us.
Where does the women’s golf team practice? We practice on three different golf courses. One of them is the Bala Golf Club in Philadelphia, another one of Vallybrook in New Jersey, and the last one is RiverWinds in New Jersey.
What is your practice schedule like? We practice every day except Saturday and Monday or Wednesday, depending. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday, those days are outdoors, and then we have one day of indoor practice, about a two-hour session, and we can choose either Monday or Wednesday to be indoors just based on our schedule.
Do you do strength training as part of your conditioning? Yes. I work with Cory [Walts, director of strength and conditioning]. In season, we do two morning sessions on Tuesday/Thursday. It will be one hour, about. And then in the offseason, we’ll have two or three sessions a week. Those will be a little longer than an hour just because it’s the offseason and we’re trying to keep our muscles.
Is golf hard on your body? Tiger Woods had a lot of physical problems even before his car accident. I think, depending on your swing mechanics, some swings are more healthy and sustainable for the long run than others. I think if you’re golfing for that long and you don’t have a healthy swing, it could be bad for your back. I do know it’s really common for golfers, if they were to have an injury, to have tendonitis because of how much you’re moving your wrist, during impact, and how much shock is going into your wrist.
Do you have a favorite professional golfer? On the women’s side, I would say Rose Zhang. She is a Stanford alumni. Her rookie year was not too long ago. She left Stanford early to pursue a professional career. I actually played a practice round with her during my junior career. It was so incredible, just being able to watch her play. She dominated junior golf so much and just to see her win her first professional tournament was so cool.
Have you ever hit a hole-in-one? Yes. I think I have like three. Funny story, my first hole-in-one was in high school. I think my freshman year. It was for qualifying for states. I had a hole-in-one with seven birdies, and I shot even par. [Laughs] It was up-and-down play. My highlight of my freshman year was when I had a hole-in-one in my very first collegiate tournament at the Yale Golf Course on the ninth hole. That was kind of crazy. And my parents were there so it was nice.
Do you play miniature golf? I do; I’m actually really bad at it. My boyfriend has never golfed before and we went to Puttshack in Center City. It was the first time we’ve ever golfed together and he beat me. I was so mad.
You are a former figure skater. Is there any correlation between figure skating and golf? I started skating when I was pretty young, and I developed a lot of different muscles that I think I wouldn’t have developed if I didn’t skate. If I only did golf, it would be much harder to attain those muscles, especially in my quads. I think distance for golf came to me more easily because I’m a former figure skater; I think a lot of people are surprised how hard I hit the ball. I think I maximize the potential I have distance-wise because of the muscles I acquired from skating. When we do workouts now, those help a lot as well in terms of distance.
What are your plans for the summer? I want to pursue a career in data analytics. I haven’t locked down an internship yet, but it will most likely be remote or in Philly. My minor is in statistics and data science and that’s kind of where I’ve been putting a lot of my focus into. That will be for probably 10-12 weeks this summer, June to August.
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