Adapting on the fly:

Alison Whitaker is good at match play.

To be successful in match play, you've got to stay positive, adapt on the fly and bounce back quickly from disappointment.

Those skills also come in handy when you come to a new school in a new country following the greatest player in program history and then fail your physical with an undiagnosed circulatory condition.

So it's a fortunate thing Alison Whitaker is good at match play.

In her sophomore year, Whitaker has helped lead the Blue Devils to five tournament victories, including this past weekend's ACC title. She will be a key player in Duke's bid for an unprecedented fourth straight NCAA championship in May. But the Melbourne, Australia, native is simply happy that things seem to be getting as close to normal as possible.

"It's taken me a while to get settled over here," Whitaker said with a hint of understatement. "Now that I'm starting to get back on my feet, it should be good."

Few things have gone as planned for Whitaker. She never really intended to go to college in the United States. At age 19, she was enrolled at St. Leonard's College part-time and spent the majority of her days perfecting her game at the Victorian Institute of Sport. In the summer of 2005, she came over to the States to play in the U.S. Amateur, where she beat incoming Duke recruit Amanda Blumenherst in the match-play round of 32 on her way to the semifinals.

Duke head coach Dan Brooks was at the tournament, armed with a list of potential recruits to watch. Whitaker, the unknown Aussie, wasn't on it. But after witnessing just two holes of her match with Blumenherst, Brooks was convinced he had found another top talent.

If the situation wasn't scary enough, it also served to conjure up some old demons. When Whitaker was in second grade, she became sick and lost almost a third of her body weight. Whitaker said she lost count of how many blood tests she endured, as her doctors could not figure out the cause of the illness. Even after she recovered, it took her months to regain full strength.

Now, years later and halfway across the world, she had to deal with another seemingly unexplainable ailment.

"At that point, I was like, 'Just give me an answer! Operate, do whatever, just fix it,'" Whitaker said with a laugh.

But Whitaker rarely let on how much it was bothering her as she tried to match the high goals she had set for her freshman year. Meanwhile, her coaches and teammates also tried to hide their fear.

"[Her condition] was something that would be negatively affected by worrying," Brooks said. "She was more worried, and I was definitely more worried than either one of us would let on, because we didn't want to risk making it worse."

During that stressful fall, the tipping point almost came in October, when in the second round of the Tar Heel Invitational, the freshman accidentally wrote down a 77 on her scorecard instead of a 78. She realized the error later and self-reported it, causing the officials to disqualify her score. The mistake dropped the Blue Devils eight shots and effectively ended any chance they had at winning. Whitaker was crushed by what she called "the cherry on top" of a brutally rough stretch. Brooks offered to tell the other girls about it, but Whitaker insisted that she should.

"They were all just so cool about it, and I think it was probably because they knew I couldn't handle it if they weren't," Whitaker said. "I was just so fragile at the time that I think if anything else went wrong, I would have gone off the deep end."

Whitaker said doctors never fully pinned down what was causing her high blood pressure, but they found medicine that would control it. The sophomore still takes the medicine and goes in for regular checkups, but it is a far cry from the fearful and exhausting ordeal of her first semester in Durham.

Finally with some sort of resolution, Whitaker vowed to bounce back in the second half of her rookie campaign. In the second tournament of the spring season, Whitaker tied for fifth, her best showing of the year. And in the second round of the NCAA championship, the freshman carded an even-par 72 to help Duke vault from fifth to first on the way to its third consecutive national title.

This year, she has taken more of a leadership role, something that is in line with her shift up to the second and third positions on the roster. Whitaker has seen ups and downs that have given her more maturity than one would expect, even for a 22-year old sophomore. And Brooks said her willingness to give him feedback has helped both her and the team's development.

"She came in with a lot of leadership qualities, and even those have developed this year," Brooks said. "She keeps everyone else's well-being in mind just by her nature, and that's a huge help on a team."

And she's continuing to learn that golf is all about adapting on the fly. Whitaker won her first tournament of her career at the UCF Challenge in March, an unexpected victory since she was in the middle of a swing change. Whitaker and Brooks were still making adjustments to her swing during the practice round, and she came out and shot an opening-day 65, the lowest round for the Blue Devils all year.

"With the amount of tournaments we have in the spring, you don't always have the luxury of being happy with your game going into a tournament," Whitaker said. "It's just a matter of believing in your athletic ability under pressure."

As for the future?

"Anything can happen in golf," Whitaker says.

She would know.