Duke opens against top teams in S.C.

When it comes to golf, local knowledge pays huge dividends. Being familiar with the course can save a competitor vital strokes during tournament play. That fact only made No. 7 Duke’s performance at this week’s Cougar Classic even more impressive.

Yeamans Hall Club, which played as a par-72 for the tournament, hosted the 54-hole event. Before the start of the tournament, the Duke players were largely unfamiliar with the course.

“It’s unique,” head coach Dan Brooks said, “and it’s a course we have never played before as a team.”

The Blue Devils finished tied for seventh at the three-day tournament in Charleston, S.C., which featured nine teams ranked in the top 25. The Blue Devils finished nineteen strokes behind No. 4 LSU, which won the event with a 16-under-par 848. Duke struggled Sunday and Monday, putting up totals of 292 and 293, respectively, but finished strong yesterday with a six-under 282 to finish three-over-par as a team for the tournament.

Brooks thought that playing on a new course was at least partly to blame for the Blue Devils’ slow start.

“Once we got to know to know this golf course,” he said, “our talent started to show through a little bit, and we finally got under par.”

Individually, Duke had two players finish in the top ten. Junior Lindy Duncan, a two-time All-American, improved each day to shoot a five-under 211, eight stokes behind individual champion Austin Ernst from LSU. Last season’s ACC rookie of the year, sophomore Laetitia Beck, started strong with a 67 on Sunday but was two-over-par over her final 36 holes and finished with a 213, which tied her for ninth.

The final day also included a promising performance from freshman Irene Jung. After finishing first in the team’s qualifier, Jung was seeded as Duke’s top player for the Cougar Classic, her first collegiate tournament. She shot 77 each of the first two days before finishing with a three-under 69. Her seven-over-par 223 tied her for 52nd place.