Four months removed from their second consecutive national semifinal appearance, the Blue Devils will try to begin the journey back to the NCAA championship—this time with fewer teeth.
No. 5 Duke will open the season at the Annika Intercollegiate Sunday through Tuesday at Reunion Resort in Orlando, Fla., as part of a 12-team field that includes six of the top seven teams in the nation. Although the Blue Devils will have their full lineup at the event, wisdom teeth surgeries weeks before the season for both 2016 NCAA individual champion Virginia Elena Carta and junior Lisa Maguire have complicated things for head coach Dan Brooks.
“We’ve had an interesting bunch of things going on, but we’re together,” Brooks said. “All should be good...we’re really excited.”
Carta’s surgery in late August forced the sophomore to miss time before an illness prevented her from competing at the World Amateur Team Championship. Maguire was set back a week after undergoing the operation during the first week of classes.
Despite those issues, the entire roster of six will make the trip to Florida with high expectations for the season to come.
“We’ve got a lot of talent,” Brooks said of a roster that includes the reigning National Player of the Year in Carta and the world’s No. 1 amateur in Leona Maguire. “We’re going to be trying to win tournaments and hopefully go all the way in May. That’s how we approach each season.”
Duke brings back four of five starters from a group that was one hole away from defeating Stanford and making the match play final at the NCAA championship last season. Along with Carta, Leona Maguire was tabbed as one of Golfweek’s top-five players in the nation entering the season.
The Cavan, Ireland, native represented her country in the Olympics and the World Amateur Team Championship, shooting 6-under-par at the event in Mexico to tie for sixth individually. As a team, Ireland won a bronze medal with a third-place finish.
“[It was a] fantastic performance,” Brooks said. “She does great in those types of situations on the international stage.”
Despite Maguire’s strong summer performances, her status with the the 2016-17 Blue Devils is up in the air, as she will enter several tournaments this fall as part of the LPGA Tour Qualifying School. If Maguire qualifies for the LPGA Tour, that would leave Brooks with just five players on the roster.
“This is a little smaller than we’d like to be. I like small teams,” Brooks said. “It allows us to develop games. We’re a developmental program….I don’t want them to think that they’ve always got to play great to prove themselves every minute. There’s some of that on any team, but if you have a lot of people, then you’re just constantly in a position of proving yourself.”
The Blue Devils have depth behind Carta and Maguire, with senior and All-ACC performer Sandy Choi returning after posting a 73.2 scoring average last season. Junior Gurbani Singh also started last season and notched two top-20 finishes, and freshman Ana Belac was the top junior golfer in Slovenia before coming to Durham. Belac also competed at the World Amateur Team Championship.
That group will head to a familiar course this weekend, one at which the team finished fifth in 2014 and fourth in 2015.
“We see it a lot in recruiting,” Brooks said. “It’s a hilly course with a lot of undulation in it, so you get a lot of uneven lies. It’s a good golf course, and we’re pretty familiar with it. Everyone down there has played there. We feel like we know it pretty well.”
Maguire has enjoyed a fair amount of success at the course, pacing the Blue Devils in scoring in each of the past two years and finishing in the top 10 both times, including a runner-up showing in 2014.
Although Duke once again enters the season with the pressure of being a top-five team, that pressure is something the Blue Devils and their six-time national champion head coach are familiar with.
“This team really has achieved. These players are achievers. They’ve done a lot of big things, so they’re really comfortable with that sort of pressure,” Brooks said. “I’m sure it’s there, but I think it’s something that probably fuels them more than is a distraction.”
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Managing Editor 2018-19, 2019-2020 Features & Investigations Editor
A member of the class of 2020 hailing from San Mateo, Calif., Ben is The Chronicle's Towerview Editor and Investigations Editor. Outside of the Chronicle, he is a public policy major working towards a journalism certificate, has interned at the Tampa Bay Times and NBC News and frequents Pitchforks.