Based on the way the fall season ended, it would have been hard to project that the Blue Devils would be slated to tee off in Friday's first round of the NCAA championship.
With touted freshmen Adam Wood and Jake Shuman joining the lineup, there was bound to be an adjustment period. But Duke never found a rhythm, notching just one top-five finish—a fourth-place, five-over-par performance at its own Rod Myers Invitational—and struggling to build the self-belief that can only come by stringing together solid rounds and strong tournaments.
"You can’t have confidence without some success in my opinion—you can’t just make it up," head coach Jamie Green said. "You can read all the sports psychology books, but you’ve got to have something concrete that you know that you’ve succeeded at to then build some confidence."
The low point came in the final tournament of the fall season—the Royal Oaks Intercollegiate in Dallas. The Blue Devils finished in last place at 70-over-par—55 strokes off the lead—and without a golfer cracking the top 30.
The disappointing fall campaign and the last-place finish in the finale spurred a team meeting that served as a reality check.
It ended up saving Duke's season.
"It was a bit of a rocky road...it was time for everyone to look in the mirror, including the coaches," Green said "Sometimes when you hit rock bottom or you’re disappointed in something—that’s the end of the fall season—it can be hard to get motivated. But these guys were very motivated and I think they bonded together because of that. Everybody made adjustments."
Since the calendar flipped to 2015, Green's squad has played like a completely different team. The results were not immediate—the Blue Devils opened the spring season in 11th place after a 25-over-par first round at the John Hayt Collegiate Invitational—but then something clicked.
Powered by a two-under-par outing by Wood and a one-under-par performance by senior Turner Southey-Gordon, Duke tied for the second-best third round in the tournament and vaulted into seventh place.
"For us at that time, we were pretty pleased and motivated about that and we were able to ride that momentum in the next month and a half, two months," Southey-Gordon said.
From there, the Blue Devils took another big leap, tying for the title at the Bandon Dunes Championship March 15 with a one-under-par team score—the first time all year Duke had finished in red numbers as a unit.
The next weekend brought another under-par finish and two more victories at the one-day Blue Devil Spring Shootout. Junior Motin Yeung placed first with a four-under-68—one of five Blue Devils to finish in the top 10—as the team claimed its first outright win of the season.
"Momentum is really nothing more than attitude in my opinion and they had good attitudes this spring," Green said. "You win a golf tournament, especially when you’re on the road on a course that was tough and challenging like we did at Bandon Dunes in really challenging weather, I think that was a big boost and shot in the arm. I think what belief they had in themselves just increased and so from there [we] rode a little bit of a wave of confidence."
Duke took a step back at the ACC championship in late April, finishing 10th at 22-over-par, but the strong spring showing attracted the notice of the NCAA selection committee and earned the Blue Devils a No. 8 seed in the Lubbock regional. To qualify for this week's NCAA championship, Green's squad had to something they had only done once in the fall but three times in the spring—finish in the top five.
Powered by Southey-Gordon—who entered the final round in second place—the Blue Devils did just that. The Toronto native finished tied with Wood for 11th at two-under-par to lead the team to an eight-under-par finish, good for third place.
Heading to the difficult Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla., for the NCAA championship, Duke now has the two things it lacked throughout the rough fall season—confidence and momentum.
"In the spring, we’ve been a completely different team. We’ve played a lot better golf, I think the morale has been higher," Wood said. "It really has been kind of a 180-degree turnaround and we’re glad that that happened, so we’re looking to keep it up."
Delaney King contributed reporting.
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