Two weeks after its five-over-par fourth place finish at the Rod Meyers Invitational, Duke heads to Dallas, Texas to compete in the Royal Oaks Intercollegiate, held Oct. 27-28 at the Royal Oaks Country Club.
Duke will compete with No. 8 Baylor, No. 17 Texas Tech, No. 21 SMU, No. 22 Oklahoma State and others at the 7,068-yard, par 71 course. After a two-year absence from the tournament, Duke returns to Royal Oaks with some new faces.
The Blue Devils expect strong play out of freshman Jake Shuman, who finished at two-under and was one of five players in the field at the Rod Meyers Invitational to shoot below par in both rounds. This impressive performance resulted in a tie with North Carolina’s Ben Griffin for eighth place in individual standings.
The Needham, Mass., native will be joined by freshman Adam Wood, sophomores Andrew Bieber and Alexander Matlari, and seniors Michael Ricaurte and Turner Southey-Gordon in the 54-hole tournament.
Head coach Jamie Green has also been impressed with the performance of Wood, who recovered from a slow start at the second round of the Rod Meyers to finish even par. Though the freshmen exhibited the best performance at Royal Oaks, the returners fought hard to keep close to par themselves at the two-day tournament.
Bieber finished tied for 23 at 2-over, Matlari and Southey-Gordon tied for 27 at 3-over and Ricaurte tied for 38 at 6-over.
The Columbus, Ohio native finished last in the Duke pack, but he lead the Blue Devils at their previous outing, the Nike Collegiate Invitational in Forth Worth, Texas. He posted a one-over 71 in the final round to finish the event with a 7-over 217 and tie for 11th place individually.
At the 8:30 a.m. shotgun start Monday, players from SMU, Oklahoma and Minnesota will join the six Blue Devils on holes 7-12. After 36 holes of play on the first day of the tournament, the action will continue Tuesday with pairings based on the previous day’s scores.
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