While freshman Laetitia Beck competes in the World Amateur Team Championship for Israel until Oct. 23, five Blue Devils look forward to playing on familiar greens at the three-round Landfall Tradition Tournament this weekend.
Duke won the NCAA Preview at Landfall last fall and looks forward to competing again on the Pete Dye course at the Country Club of Landfall in Wilmington, N.C.
The No. 5 Blue Devils finished third and scored low at the Tar Heel Invitational in their last tournament two weeks ago, and head coach Dan Brooks said that their performance will give them a boost for this upcoming tournament.
“What you take away from going under par is getting the confidence that tells you that you can do it again,” Brooks said. “We’re on a good golf course here with some challenges that I think we’re ready for.”
The Landfall Tradition roster boasts some strong competition, including No. 4 UCLA, No. 16 Wake Forest and No. 8 Virginia. This is the last tournament of the fall season and the team is ready to take on its opponents.
“It does give us a standard, and when it’s higher we play harder,” Brooks said. “It’s an incentive to play better when the field is packed with talent. But we’re just going to come out and play the golf course.”
Duke played at the Pete Dye track twice last year—once in a winning effort in the fall’s NCAA tournament preview and again when the course was used for the NCAA Championship in the spring.
“It’s nice to have past knowledge,” senior Kim Donovan said. “It will help for some of the putts. But we’re really just going to let chips fall where they may and play our best. This is the end of the season. It’s the last tournament so we definitely want to give it our all.”
Donovan will be joined in the field this weekend by freshman Alejandra Cangrejo and sophomores Lindy Duncan, Courtney Ellenbogen and Stacey Kim. Cangrejo is the only novice to the course.
With Beck competing in a world-renowned tournament and Duncan and Cangrejo coming off top-20 performances at the Tar Heel Invitational, the young Blue Devils have a bright future. And with the fall stretch wrapping up and the heart of the season beginning in the spring, this will be the last chance in months for Duke to show its potential.
“We definitely have an upside talent-wise with some really motivated players,” Brooks said. “Honestly the sky is the limit. We just need to discover is much people want it, if not this year, in future years. In golf you can do a lot of good things when you’re young. Its not like golf courses change. You don’t go up against stronger competitors like basketball or football. We just have to play our own game.”
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