After a strong finish to the second round of the ACC championships, the Blue Devils found themselves within two strokes of leader, and eventual co-champion, No. 13 Georgia Tech.
But in the final day of play Sunday, No. 26 Duke was plagued by inconsistent putting and slipped from second to fourth on the leaderboard.
Following two consecutive 2-under 286s, Duke failed to match its previous success, ending the day at 3-over-par and giving the team a final score of 1-under 863 to tie with No. 23 Florida State.
"Today just wasn't our day," interim head coach Brad Sparling said. "We played OK the first two days, but on the last day we just made a couple of mental mistakes and couldn't make our putts when we needed to."
Leading the Blue Devils in the final round was Jake Grodzinsky, who was the only Duke player to shoot under-par for the day with a 3-under 69. Grodzinsky struggled the first two rounds of the tournament, carding six bogeys while shooting only five birdies. The senior began the final day successfully, however, with an opening birdie, and then followed it with three more on the sixth, eighth and 11th holes.
Grodzinsky finished the tournament in ninth place with a 1-under 215, giving him his highest finish since the Fighting Illini Invitational in September.
"I was really happy for Jake to finish ninth in his final ACC championships," Sparling said. "He had a lot of putts inside of ten feet and led us down the final stretch."
Junior Michael Schachner was on track in the first two rounds for a top-10 finish, but putting errors overwhelmed him in the final round.
Although Schachner carded 14 birdies for the tournament, his three double-bogeys in the final round dropped him from sixth to 12th place at even par.
Also unable to repeat his success from the first two days was junior Clark Klaasen, who slipped from sixth to 30th place after shooting two double-bogeys and three bogeys. After firing two rounds of 1-under 71s, Klaasen ended the tournament at 4-over-par.
Freshman Adam Long finished in 15th with a 1-over 217, after previously holding the tenth spot on the leaderboard. Fellow freshman Jeff Edelman battled allergies the entire weekend to finish the tournament at 11-over-par.
The Blue Devils will now have time to rest before the NCAA Regional championships begin May 17. Sparling said that the break will allow the players to shift their attention away from the golf course to academics to finish the semester.
"Their focus right now is to finish the semester strong," Sparling said. "In terms of working on individual things, we're improving every week, and we know that one of these tournaments will be our chance to break out. We have a really good team, but we just need the day when our putts fall, and we'll be able beat any team in the country."
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