Unique course features and a fight for second place that came down to the wire made this weekend’s regular season finale one to remember.
Duke capped off the regular season this weekend in New Haven, Conn., with a fourth-place finish at the Yale Spring Invitational, overcoming abnormally unpredictable greens in the process. Freshman Adam Wood paced the Blue Devils through all three rounds, carding two-over-par and tying for ninth place. Virginia edged out Duke by one stroke to take third place and Clemson finished just one stroke ahead of the Cavaliers to claim second. No. 22 Wake Forest took home the team title by a staggering 28-stroke margin.
Despite putting forth a balanced team effort—placing four golfers in the top 25—the Blue Devils leave Connecticut with a bitter taste in their mouths after missing out on second place by only two strokes.
“You’ve got five guys battling for every shot,” Duke head coach Jamie Green said. “Sometimes you’re a little bummed out if you lose to a team by a shot or two. But I feel that we were right in there with them and there are a lot of positives to take away [from the weekend].”
Played at The Course at Yale—the No. 1 college course in the country according to Golfweek—the 54-hole tournament featured unique environmental challenges brought about by the Northeast’s harsh winter. Chief among these obstacles was the condition of the greens, as heavy snowfall and spring showers had prevented groundskeepers from grooming the course since last fall.
Greens are normally beautifully smooth surfaces, but the Yale greens were riddled with holes and littered with sand and soil debris.
Sometime before the snow set in, Yale’s groundskeepers aerated the soil to keep it healthy, but due to some unexpected curveballs from Mother Nature, they have been unable to do the necessary resurfacing work.
Golfers up and down the leaderboard struggled to read the bumpy greens. Green said he advised his squad to focus on the long game and stay poised on the greens. By following Green’s game plan, Duke was able to make up ground on the leaderboard on day two, but still not enough to sneak past Virginia and Clemson.
“Just about every putt hit an aeration hole or some sand on the green,” Green said. “More than anything else, guys had to have patience…. If you could get a tap-in and get out of there without any more bloodshed then you were doing as good as most teams.”
Wood rode the momentum of a four-under-par first round to capture his third top 10 finish of the year Sunday. Freshman Jake Shuman finished close behind him, carding one-under-par in the third round to finish tied for 12th with a three-round score of four-over-par. The trio of senior Turner Southey-Gordon, sophomore Max Greyserman and senior Michael Ricaurte each finished tied for 21st overall. Junior Motin Yeung rounded out the Blue Devil lineup, shooting one-under-par Sunday en route to a final score of 221.
Sophomore Alexander Matlari competed as an individual, closing the tournament with a one-under-par 69 and finishing eighth overall with a one-over-par mark. The Leimen, Germany, native has finished in the top 10 of three of the past four tournaments for the Blue Devils.
Two Duke golfers also saw playing time in Raleigh, N.C., this weekend, as sophomore Andrew Bieber and freshman Ben Silverman each competed in the Wolfpack Spring Open. Bieber finished tied for 27th overall after notching an even par in the second round and Silverman wrapped up the weekend tied for 66th.
“Everyone on the team is a little different,” Green said. “They all have different strengths. When you have depth, it pushes everyone to work harder and get better. When you’re out competing everyone wants to be in the lineup…. It’s good to know that we have multiple athletes who can get in that lineup and shoot under par.”
Duke has a short, two-day homestay before leaving for the ACC championship Wednesday at Old North State Club in New London, N.C. This tournament begins Friday, but the hasty turnaround will be an extra tough one for Green’s squad as the school season is reaching its peak as well.
After sifting through sandy greens all weekend, the Blue Devils might find themselves sifting through study guides Monday and Tuesday as they gear up for the both the end of the season and the end of the semester.
“[Our upcoming schedule] is a challenge for our student-athletes—especially at a place like Duke,” Green said. “They are working their butts off to get ready for the ACCs, but they are also working their tails off for the classroom.”
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