The keys to a successful golf tournament are avoiding big numbers and not shooting yourself out of the tournament in the first round.
The men's golf team was unable to do these things in the first two rounds at the Duke Classic this weekend, resulting in a ninth place finish out of 18 teams.
"I think it's huge [to get off to a good start]," coach Rod Myers said. "It's like any athletic contest. You really need to get off to a good start or not a horrible start where all of a sudden you are so far behind.
"You can't win a golf tournament in the first round, but you can certainly lose one, and there is no question we lost this tournament in the first round."
The tournament, played at the 7,104-yard, par-72 Duke Golf Club, was won by Virginia Tech with a three-round total of 886, six shots ahead of second place Augusta State. Individual honors were captured by Georgia Southern's Justin Kolumber, who shot a three-round total of 217, one-over par. Kolumber won on the second playoff hole over Virginia Tech's Johnson Wagner.
Originally scheduled to play 36 holes Sunday and the final 18 Monday, heavy rains forced the second round to be suspended with players having between five and seven holes remaining. The second round was finished Monday morning with the final round immediately following it.
Although playing on its home course should have given Duke a huge advantage in the tournament, according to senior Matt Krauss, the weather changed all that.
"I think [the weather] played a huge role," Krauss said. "I think Sunday was a course that took all our advantage out and maybe even gave us a disadvantage. I would have rather come to the course for the first time Sunday just because it was so different. I have never seen it play that hard.
"If you weren't in the fairway you couldn't hit the green at all because it will roll over. Normally you just had to hit it within the tree line off the tee, and you can score decent because the greens are soft and receptive and if you're in the rough, it didn't matter. I learned that wasn't the case this week right away. I only hit three fairways in the first round and couldn't hit any greens."
Krauss led the Blue Devils this week thanks to a final-round, three-under-par 69 that moved the senior from a tie for 33rd into a tie for 10th place. Krauss was only one-over with four holes left in his first round, but he played those holes at five-over and finished with a 78.
While he was not hitting the ball all that well, Krauss credits his strong mental game for his good final round.
"I played terrible this tournament, but I think mentally I'm getting a lot better," Krauss said. "Normally it's the strongest part of my game, but it wasn't until this Monday that I realized that I was hitting it awful so I decided to just think my way around the course."
Senior Brandon LaCroix had a solid tournament, firing rounds of 74-75-75-224 to finish in a tie for 18th place.
The most disappointing play of the week came from junior Leif Olson, who fired two uncharacteristic rounds of 78-81 before rebounding in the final round to shoot a one-over-par 73. Olson finished at 16-over par and tied for 52nd place.
While the weather did pose some problems for the Blue Devils, Myers believes that the weather was not the only difference between the first day, when Duke shot its way out of the tournament, and the second day, when the Blue Devils shot the lowest round of the day.
"The biggest difference between the two days was the better management skills leading to the absence of the big numbers, " Myers said. "Sunday, we were constantly killed with poor decisions and big numbers because of it.
"It was extremely frustrating when you look at the leaderboard and see the totals that it took to have good finishes or to win and then for us not to be there. As much as we play this golf course and the way that we should respect it and understand how difficult it is, we got caught in the same problems that other teams did."
Sophomore Mike Castleforte fired rounds of 77-79-75-231 to finish in a tie for 48th place.
Rounding out the Duke lineup was junior Brad Clark and sophomore Bobby Castor, who competed as an individual. Clark had a solid final-round 76 to finish in a tie for 74th place, while Castor fired rounds of 78-75-75 to finish in a tie for 32nd place.
The Blue Devils haven't had the successful fall season that they hoped for, but Duke isn't waiving the white flag just yet.
"This still a real young team," Myers said. "We are still trying to find ourselves: where we are and who are going to be the solid performers. We would like to have better total scores from Matt, Leif and Brandon; they're our leaders, so we have to look to them. We certainly can't start to panic with the whole spring in front of us, but we're usually a good team in the fall and it going to be frustrating to not have been one."
Duke returns to action Oct. 26-28 at The Nelson Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif., where it is the defending champion.
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