The Blue Devils will leave the frigid temperatures that hit Durham over the weekend for the 80-degree sunshine of Southern California.
No. 13 Duke returns to the golf course Monday at the Prestige at the PGA West in La Quinta, Calif., looking to build on a strong showing in the fall campaign, when the Blue Devils finished no worse than third. The three-day tournament will be Duke's first competition since early November at the Wendy’s Kiawah Classic at Turtle Point in Kiawah Island, S.C., where the Blue Devils finished third.
“The guys are excited about playing pretty solidly in the fall,” Duke head coach Jamie Green said. “But they’re hungry for more, that’s what their focus has been.”
The Blue Devils will go up against some of the nation's best teams on the Greg Norman Course, including No. 7 Stanford, No. 8 Southern California and No. 15 Arizona State. Duke finished third in its final two tournaments of the fall, but then put away its clubs for the winter, meaning the early-week tournament will provide a good chance for the Blue Devils to rediscover the momentum they gathered at the end of the fall.
“There’s good competition from top to bottom,” Green said. “So we need to go out and stay hungry and play our best.”
Sophomore Adam Wood carded the best fall slate of any Blue Devil, and will be looked to as the anchor of Green's squad this spring. The Zionsville, Ind., native was recently named to the Ben Hogan Award watch list—an award given to the nation’s top golfer. Wood posted four top-10 finishes out of Duke's five fall tournaments—claiming runner-up honors at two events—and fired seven rounds in the 60s.
Juniors Max Greyserman, Alexander Matlari and Matt Oshrine will join Wood in La Quinta Monday, along with sophomore Jake Shuman and freshman Alex Smalley. Oshrine—a transfer from Loyola—ranked second on the team with a 72.4 scoring average along with two top-10 finishes. Shuman had a top-20 finish in the Dick’s Sporting Goods Collegiate Challenge Cup in late September—Duke's lone team victory of the fall—and Smalley put together a top-25 finish at the Nike Collegiate Invitational the next weekend.
Duke is in the unfamiliar position of relying heavily on its underclassmen, without a senior on the roster. Turner Southey-Gordon helped the Blue Devils return to the NCAA tournament a season ago before graduating, leaving behind a young core that has dealt with situations before.
“We need to be sure that we’re ready for surprises in the tournament, if they have to change some things up that we didn’t expect, or the weather shifts on us,” Green said. “We need to make sure that we use practice rounds a lot, more so than an experienced team that might have seen a few more golf courses.”
The other top-15 schools in the field this week have the advantage of being able to practice in ideal weather year-round, but Duke has tried to do its best dealing with the cold conditions in Durham.
“This time of year with the weather outside, you do what you can, but they have been very intent on continuing to be better,” Green said.
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