Update: Junior Lisa Maguire will be in the lineup this week for the Blue Devils instead of sophomore Virginia Elena Carta, the team announced before the start of the event.
The Blue Devils were short-handed during their last event in Palos Verdes, Calif.—without both Sandy Choi and head coach Dan Brooks—but still saw several impressive performances that allowed the team to contend late and eventually finish third.
Now, with the squad at full strength, Duke will look to build upon that finish by returning to the friendly confines of Long Cove Club.
Brooks' team will travel to Hilton Head, S.C., to compete in the sixth annual Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, a 54-hole event featuring some of the nation’s most competitive teams. After enjoying a concert from the rock and country singer Thursday night, the No. 12 Blue Devils will tee it up Friday through Sunday on a course where they have won two of the last three years.
“It’s a very good golf course,” Brooks said. “Pete Dye built it and it’s one of the best courses we play all season. It’s different than Palos Verdes, where we dealt with a lot of elevation change, uphill, downhill shots, this is down at Hilton Head so it’s not going to have those extreme elevation changes…. What makes it challenging is just the architect. Pete Dye, he built a heck of a golf course.”
The trip south comes on the back of another top finish by junior Leona Maguire, who was co-champion at February’s Northrop Grumman Regional after shooting 4-under-par. The Cavan, Ireland, native is poised to lead her team once again but has had mixed results during her two previous trips to Long Cove Club—in 2015 she was co-champion but in 2016 she had her second-worst finish of the season with a tie for 17th. Although Maguire has the talent level to win without playing her best golf, Brooks said she has been striking the ball well heading into this weekend’s 17-team event.
Freshman Ana Belac also carries plenty of momentum into the tournament, as she is hot off a career-best, seventh-place finish and rides a streak of two consecutive top-10 results. Belac posted three straight rounds of 71 for an even-par ledger in Palos Verdes, making it four straight rounds that the freshman has shot 73 or better.
“Ana had never seen the golf course before and shot even par for three days coming out of the winter. That’s really good for a freshman,” Brooks said. “I was pleased but not surprised. She’s been doing some great work on her swing, she really is striking the ball more solidly than what she was in the fall and that’s credit to her for some hard work on her swing.”
Reigning individual national champion Virginia Elena Carta had her worst finish of last season at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate, but the sophomore is far more experienced and battle-tested now than when she first tackled the difficult Long Cove Club a year ago. The Udine, Italy, native also joins Maguire and Belac in bringing good form to the contest, as Carta placed alongside Belac at seventh place in California and holds the team’s second-best scoring average at 72.5 strokes per round.
Sandy Choi—the team’s only senior—was absent from the Palos Verdes event due to pneumonia, but could not have picked a better place to make her spring debut. As a sophomore, Choi finished in a tie for third after shooting 1-over-par, and shot the same score last year en route to a season-best tie for second. Despite her recent illness, Brooks said her game is in shape to have another successful outing this year.
“Sandy is kind of a rock,” Brooks said. “When her game is off, it’s not generally very far off and she hasn’t been in a tournament yet this spring but I’m looking forward to seeing her in the lineup. She’s been playing great I think.”
Junior Gurbani Singh will round out the team’s lineup looking to bounce back from last month’s struggle at the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, where she tied for 50th. The New Delhi native does have a solid finish at this event on her resume, though, as she shot 4-over-par in 2015 to finish in a tie for sixth.
The field is arguably the most difficult that Duke will see during the remainder of regular season play, as it is both deep and talented. In addition to the Blue Devils, nine other ranked teams will tee it up at Long Cove Club, led by No. 4 Arizona State, No. 5 Alabama and No. 8 Furman. The Crimson Tide were champions of last year’s event with a three-day total of 16-over-par as Duke shot 26-over-par to earn third place.
For Brooks and the rest of Duke, the more difficult the competition, the better.
“It’s always a benefit,” Brooks said. “We try and play in the hardest tournaments we can all the time and I just think it’s great, great benefit to have other great players on that golf course.”
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