Although Duke has started slowly in its first two postseason events, the Blue Devils will have plenty of time to make up ground and get back in contention if they do so again fighting for national title No. 7.
No. 6 Duke will compete with 23 other teams and 12 individuals at the NCAA championship beginning Friday in Eugene, Ore. Two weeks removed from a sluggish start and a fourth-place finish at NCAA regional play, the Blue Devils hope to be among the eight teams that advance to the match play portion of the championship after 72 holes of stroke play.
But knowing that six days of golf could be in store if the team performs well, Duke is also prepared for what could turn into an endurance test.
“We’re in pretty good shape,” Blue Devil head coach Dan Brooks said. “They’re pretty excited about playing golf right now and I think that makes a lot of difference this time of year. If they’re the least bit burned out or tired, that’s not a good thing, but they seem to be ready to go.”
This year’s Duke lineup brings national championship experience to the par-72 Eugene Country Club, with four-fifths of last year’s tournament lineup returning to this year’s rendition.
The lone newcomer to the tournament is freshman Virginia Elena Carta. The Udine, Italy, native has been the team’s most consistent performers of late—riding a streak of four straight top-10 finishes—and fired a team-best, five-under-par 67 during her last competitive round at the NCAA Baton Rouge, La., regional, bringing her scoring average in her last eight rounds to 71.9.
Sophomore Leona Maguire leads the Blue Devils in scoring average, and will return to the national championship after tying for second individually in stroke play last year.
Although the Cavan, Ireland, native tied for seventh at the NCAA regional, she said the team was unhappy about its start and hopes to hopes to build on the positive momentum from the final two days of that event—the team improved 13 shots between the opening and final rounds.
“We’re probably not as happy with the season as we would have liked,” Maguire said. “We’ve had some really good individual performances, but we probably haven’t gelled together all at once maybe quite as well as we would have liked so I think the last two days at regionals were definitely very positive for us.”
The week’s field features every top-10 team and 18 top-25 teams, along with three of the four teams that advanced to the semifinals of match play last year—the round in which the Blue Devils were eliminated.
Junior Sandy Choi will tee off on the Robert Trent Jones design in solid form, having tied for fourth at the regional event—the best finish of any Blue Devil—after rounds of 73, 69 and 71. This will be Choi’s third appearance at the national championship. The Seoul, South Korea, in which she tied for 23rd and 58th in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
2014 National Player of the Year Celine Boutier will make her final start for Duke this week. The senior has struggled since winning March’s LSU Tiger Golf Classic by 14 strokes, averaging 77.3 strokes per round in her last three starts.
The Montrouge, France, native does have plenty of past success at the national championship, though, and has earned two top-five finishes in three starts. Boutier also has a 9-1 record in match play the past two years.
Gurbani Singh will round out the Blue Devil lineup coming off a tie for 44th place in Baton Rouge. The sophomore has the team’s fifth-best scoring average at 75.4 but was the team’s second-best finisher at the 2015 national championship, tying for 14th after stroke play.
For the second straight year, this year's championship will feature all teams and individuals competing in 54 holes of stroke play Friday-Sunday, with the top 15 teams and top nine individuals not on an advancing team moving on to Monday’s final round of stroke-play qualifying, when an individual national champion will be crowned.
The top eight teams after Monday’s round will advance to match play, with the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds held Tuesday, followed by the national championship match Wednesday.
Last year’s NCAA championship run ended for the Blue Devils with a 3-2 loss in the national semifinals after Baylor’s Lauren Whyte defeated Maguire in six extra holes. Despite the disappointing result, Maguire said the team’s experience playing for five straight days last year should aid its ability to stay energized throughout the week.
“It’s a lot of golf in quite a short space of time,” Maguire said. “I think we’ll be better prepared for that. We’re returning everybody except one to the team that went to Florida last year so I think we’re prepared for everything that it entails and I think our team is peaking at the right time so we’re all very excited.”
Amrith Ramkumar contributed reporting.
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