The Duke women's golf team must have been shocked to see the sun.
Duke finished 13th out of 18 teams on Wednesday at the Conquistadores/Chris Johnson Arizona Invitational in Tucson, Ariz. Cold and wet weather restricted the squad's practice time earlier this spring, hindering the team's preparation for the tournament, the first of its spring season.
"It's hard at the beginning of the year if you can't practice much," junior Katharina Poppmeier said. "You go there with so many expectations and it's not easy."
Duke did want to test itself against the best this week: the tournament featured most of the top squads in women's college golf, including Arizona State. The Sun Devils breezed to the team title in Tucson by an awe-inspiring 48 strokes over runners-up Wake Forest and South Carolina. Duke finished with a three-day total of 939 strokes, 67 shots adrift of ASU.
"What we've seen here is that, on Tuesday, we played to our potential," Duke head coach Dan Brooks said. "But with the spring season that we've had, because of the weather, it has had us fighting to get a lot of playing in, so we're going to be up and down."
The team was inconsistent in Arizona, sandwiching two poor rounds around one spectacular one. Ironically, the biggest bright spot for the Blue Devils came on the darkest day of the tournament, during Tuesday's second round. In 15th place (319 strokes) after Monday, Duke charged into a tie for seventh place going into the final round.
"That's the way we can see that we can play really well," Poppmeier said. "In the next tournament, we'll put it together for three days and then we'll be off from there."
The Blue Devils shot 299, the low round of the day, in weather that must have made February in Durham look down right pleasant. Although the Randolph Park North Golf Course received little rain, play was stopped twice due to lightening in the area and another time for a hail delay.
The Blue Devils were unphased by the nasty conditions, especially junior Jamie Koizumi. She fired a one-under-par round of 71, the third lowest round of the day. Teammates Poppmeier and Alicia Allison chalked up low rounds as well, scoring 73 and 74 respectively.
"Jamie Koizumi, with that 71, that was great," Brooks said. "To go under par, I think she kind of broke through for us."
Wednesday saw fewer clouds but more strokes for the Blue Devils. No Duke golfer could manage better than a round of 79--that coming from Poppmeier, who finished the tournament as the Blue Devil's highest individual finisher, tying for 18th place.
"We're not down on our performance," head coach Dan Brooks said. "Last year we had trouble in this tournament and we went on to finish fourth in the country. With the kind of practice schedule we've had, it's good to see us play well during even part of the tournament. We're not down on our performance at all."
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