The weekend was a bit of a roller-coaster for the Blue Devils, but they were able to finish on a high note.
No. 13 Duke completed its second tournament of the fall season this weekend in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Collegiate Challenge Cup at the Golf Club of Tennessee in Kingston Springs, Tenn. The Blue Devils claimed a 3-2 victory against Kentucky in the match play portion of the tournament Sunday after finishing tied for fifth with a cumulative 11-over-par score in the three rounds of stroke play Friday and Saturday.
“We’re happy to get the win here today,” Duke head coach Jamie Green told GoDuke.com after the win against the Wildcats. “It was an up-and-down day, but we played well enough to give ourselves a chance to win on the final hole. A win is a win, and it’s great to have it under our belt.”
The highlight of the tournament for Duke was a 10-under-par round in Friday’s second round that was the best total score posted in any round of the weekend by five strokes.
Although they finished their first tournament of the season with a strong final round back nine at the Rod Meyers Invitational, the Blue Devils were unable to carry that momentum forward in Friday morning’s opening round. They teed off on the 10th hole—a 200-yard par three—where only two of Duke’s five starters made par, setting the team back four strokes after just a single hole of play.
The Blue Devils were unable to recover in their opening round, finishing with a 10-over-par score that put them in 11th place out of a 12-team field that featured six ACC and six SEC representatives. Freshman Alex Smalley was the lone highlight for Duke in the first 18 holes, recording just a single bogey en route to an even-par round that featured 10 straight pars out of the gate.
“Alex’s play [Friday] showed a lot of maturity,” Green said. “When he gets dialed in, you can see him itching to go low. He had a good rhythm and a good feel, and even though his rounds weren’t super low, that also showed his maturity because he was able to be so consistent. His even-keeled nature was a big part of him being able to shoot in the red.”
Smalley finally got some help from his teammates in the afternoon session, when the Blue Devils reversed course and beat their score from the morning round by 20 strokes. The Wake Forest, N.C., native began his second round with a birdie on the 433-yard, par-four first on his way to carding a two-under-par 69—but that was far from the story of the afternoon for Duke.
Sophomores Jake Shuman and Adam Wood came out for the second round in blistering fashion, combining to shoot seven-under-par on the front nine without a single bogey between them. Shuman came up with an eagle on the par-five seventh and finished his round at five-under-par—the best single round a Blue Devil recorded during the weekend.
With its stellar second round, Duke catapulted all the way up to third in the standings at the conclusion of play Friday, seven strokes behind second-round-leader and eventual runner-up Virginia.
Saturday was less kind to the Blue Devils, who came back down to Earth with an 11-over-par score in the final round of stroke play Saturday. Smalley imploded with nine bogeys or worse as he carded an 80 in the third round, while Wood led the squad with an even-par round to finish tied for 13th.
Sunday’s match play format pitted each ACC school against an SEC counterpart, highlighted by a matchup of the Cavaliers against No. 12 Vanderbilt after the Commodores defeated Virginia in a playoff Saturday to claim the stroke play crown.
The Blue Devils finished with a narrow 3-2 victory against the host Wildcats as the two conferences each picked up three wins in the match play competition. Wood took the final tee time for Duke and sealed the victory against Tyler McDaniel, who finished tied for fifth in stroke play with an overall score of three-under-par.
The Blue Devils will not have much time to recover before their next competition, as they will travel across the country to North Plains, Ore., to compete in the Nike Collegiate Invitational beginning Sunday.
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