The women's golf team broke tournament records at the Golf World Palmetto Dunes Collegiate in Hilton Head, S.C., but victory still eluded the Blue Devils. Duke finished third in the field of 12 teams.
Each of the top three squads, Arizona State, Texas and Duke, beat the previous tournament low, yet an 891 over three rounds was not enough to propel the Blue Devils to victory in the prestigious tournament, which brought the NCAA's best golf teams together from all across the country.
The Duke men placed 15th out of 18 teams in the men's division. The Blue Devils were paced by senior Mike Muehr and sophomore Justin Klein, but a first round of 291 put Duke in a 12th-place hole from which it could not recover.
The Duke women were led by junior standout Stephanie Sparks. She shot a 217 to capture fourth in the individual rankings. Sophomore Katharina Poppmeier tied for sixth individually with 219.
But the tournament was dominated by NCAA champion Arizona State, which took the team and individual honors.
After the first round of play, the Blue Devils found themselves in a tie for third place, just eight strokes behind San Jose State, the early leader. Duke pulled ahead into second place during the second round of play and faced a seven-stroke deficit heading into the final round. The Blue Devils, however, fell behind on the last day to finish 21 strokes behind the winner, Arizona State. Texas edged the Blue Devils by just one stroke to capture second place.
"We have to be disappointed that we weren't able to win," head coach Dan Brooks said. "We played so well in the first two rounds and that got us in a fighting position for the third round. However, when the top three teams all beat the record, we have to be proud of our showing."
Prior to this tournament, the Blue Devils never really had a chance to play the top teams in the nation. The chance to compete against the best teams gave Duke a good assessment of its play this fall.
"We knew we were the best team in the East, but we weren't really sure how we stacked up against the rest of the country," Brooks said. "We needed to find out how we could compete against the best teams. One good aspect of the tournament is that we beat San Jose State, one of the teams we were aiming for coming into this tournament."
The final round left the Blue Devils rather disappointed with their play. They shot a 301, which put somewhat of a damper on their spirits.
"We expect ourselves to play in the low 290s," Brooks said. "We were really disappointed with a 301 on the final day."
The tournament concluded the fall season for the Blue Devils, yet it left them with optimistic hopes for the spring.
"We have one of the best things going for us heading into the spring -- a very successful fall season," Brooks said. "I think our entire fall was an extreme success. We had a much better fall than we did last year.
"There was not one tournament in which we had a poor showing. I think we had two stellar showings at the Furman tournament and here [at the Golf World Collegiate]. It gives us a lot of hope heading into the spring season of championship tournaments."
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