The men's golf team knew it had to play well to compete with the best teams at the Ping Intercollegiate this weekend.
Mixed results at MacGregor Downs Country Club in Cary, N.C., left the team well short of that goal. Duke finished last in the 12-team field, 38 strokes behind the winner, North Carolina. The Tar Heels, co-hosts of the tournament with N.C. State, bested their nearest competitors, Nevada Las-Vegas and Oklahoma State, by 14 strokes each.
The Blue Devils biggest bright spot of the weekend was the individual play of junior Joe Ogilvie. He completed the tournament at two under par, good enough for seventh place. Ogilvie's total for the three day event was 214 strokes, five shots back of winner Chris Couch from Florida.
"We looked like we might have a chance to beat somebody out there," Duke head coach Rod Myers said. "We were in 10th place going into the day. We were playing Florida and Wake Forest and got beat by both of those teams."
Duke shot 303 as a team on Sunday, missing out on a tie for 10th by a mere three strokes. The Blue Devils weren't that far from the rest of the pack though: had the team shot only six strokes better, it would have moved up into eighth place, passing Atlantic Coast Conference rivals Wake Forest, N.C. State and Clemson in the process.
Myers said that the quality of the field had a lot to do with the team's low finish. The presence of schools like Nevada-Las Vegas and Oklahoma State caused the team to change its outlook before play began.
"They brought in some really outstanding teams," Myers said. "It was a great field with all top-20 type teams. It was one of those kinds of fields where if you just play mediocre golf, you'll have trouble beating anybody. We were naturally hoping that we could beat a few teams here, but we also knew that if we didn't play well, that wasn't going to happen."
After Ogilvie, sophomore Jason Buha was Duke's next highest finisher, in 33rd place. Buha started the tournament well with a round of 71 but couldn't continue his excellent play over the final two rounds of the tournament.
"Ogilvie had a nice tournament," Myers said. "He was consistent all the way through, and he didn't give too much away. [Buha] had a nice round the first round, but it was one of those `could-have-been' rounds. It could have been much lower."
Myers said that the set-up of MacGregor Downs--a course the team sometimes played for practice last year while the Duke Golf Club was closed for renovation--made the seemingly easy course play surprisingly tough.
"That golf course--if you just go and play it on a week day, you'd say its not that difficult," Myers said. "But they really move the hole locations around and set it up a little tough. All of a sudden those scores go up a little bit."
Still, Myers said that having several players starting to play well and seeing the team finish within striking distance of three of the five ACC foes had him looking forward to the ACC tournament.
"I thought we made a little progress with the ACC championship coming," Myers said. "Jason Buha seems to be closer to what we hoped for him, and I was glad to see Joe have a good, solid tournament."
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