By the time she stepped into the tee box for the fourth time Saturday, Leona Maguire knew the 18th hole as well as anyone.
The freshman drained a birdie putt on the second playoff hole to claim the individual ACC championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, N.C., beating out Virginia’s Briana Mao. The Cavan, Ireland, native shot 10-under-par for the event, which was condensed into two 27-hole days due to the threat of inclement weather.
“She’s played a lot of high-level golf, so even though she’s a freshman in college she’s played at a high level for a long time,” Duke head coach Dan Brooks said. “But I don’t think even that explains some of the wise decisions she makes, the awareness that she has out there. I’ve been impressed by how she sizes up a golf course.... She’s a really intelligent golfer.”
No. 11 Virginia ran away with the team title, posting a tournament record 27-under par to win by 26 strokes, snapping the No. 5 Blue Devils’ streak of three consecutive ACC championships. Duke finished second with a one-under 863, the only other team in the field that finished the 54 holes in red numbers.
Maguire is the second consecutive Blue Devil to hoist the individual conference championship hardware, after junior Celine Boutier won last year.
The freshman posted consecutive rounds of four-under-par to start the tournament, including a second-round 68 that was split between Friday and Saturday. Maguire entered Saturday’s final 18 holes leading Mao by three strokes and turned in a bogey-free round, but the Cavalier senior made a charge early in the round with four birdies to tie Maguire at the turn.
“[Mao] made a lot of birdies on the front nine and really came at me,” Maguire told GoDuke.com. “I was just trying to stick with her the whole day and knew that if I could keep giving myself chances, hopefully I could get a few birdies and catch up with her and I guess I did that in the end, so that was great.”
Mao birdied the 10th to grab a one-shot lead, but Maguire answered with a birdie on the next hole to join her at nine-under-par. Both players picked up a shot on the par-5 15th hole and played mistake-free golf on the final three holes to force the playoff.
The golfers retraced their steps to the 18th tee box and Maguire drove her tee shot to the left, eliminating the chance of launching her approach shot onto the green. Nevertheless, both Maguire and Mao had opportunities to win with birdie putts, but neither could convert, and the duo returned to play the 18th hole yet again.
This time, Maguire’s tee shot put her in a better position and set up an interesting decision—one that wound up putting her in position to win the tournament.
“She could’ve knocked it onto the green, possibly, with a three-wood,” Brooks said. “But she opted to hit a five-wood, which landed her in a landing area right in front of the green, and it was a very smart shot, just really smart. It gave her an opportunity to chip and putt for a birdie, but it didn’t bring in the risk of going in the deep green side bunkers that would’ve come in if she had hit a three-wood. So I think it was a smart decision—I don’t think a lot of college golfers would’ve made that decision.”
Maguire got up and down for a birdie to win the event after Mao was forced to two-putt for a par. With the victory, she became the 13th Duke golfer and eighth Blue Devil freshman to win the ACC tournament title.
“That’s pretty much as dramatic as it gets,” Maguire said. “Just to join that list is a great honor, and especially as a freshman. I didn’t really have that big of expectations coming in as a freshman and stuff, but it’s great to get another win under my belt.”
Boutier, the reigning individual champion, finished out of contention at five-over-par. The junior suffered through a rough stretch at the end of Saturday’s final round, bogeying three of her final four holes to send her tumbling down the leaderboard.
Like Maguire, freshman Gurbani Singh turned in a stellar showing, finishing sixth at five-under-par. The New Delhi native finished Friday’s 27 holes with eight birdies and four bogeys. Singh finished out the second round Saturday with three more birdies and then played a mistake-free back nine in her final round to shave two more strokes off her score.
Recent rainfall led to softer conditions and lower scores at the 6,089-yard Sedgefield course. Duke won the event last year with a 10-over-par—a clip that would have finished sixth in this year’s field. Despite the rain-soaked course, Virginia ran away with the victory fueled by four of the tournament’s seven lowest scores.
“[Virginia] didn’t falter, that’s the thing,” Brooks said. “Usually when you have a team that gets hot like they did, they’ll follow it up with at least a little bit of a hiccup.... They played just solid golf through the entire tournament—it was very impressive.”
Duke will continue postseason play May 7 at the NCAA regionals, looking to defend its national championship.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.