The men's golf team had to fight past a first round full of bad weather and unlucky mistakes to finish fifth in a field of 15 teams at the Adams Cup of Newport.
The tournament was held in Kingston, R.I., on Tuesday and Wednesday.
East Tennessee State swept the field of 15, capturing a 13-stroke win over second-place Arkansas with a three-round total of 884. Clemson finished third with a 902, while Minnesota edged Duke out for fourth place by two strokes. The Blue Devils completed the tournament with a score of 914.
Duke might have earned a higher spot in the tournament, but an exceptionally bad first round marred the Blue Devils' chances.
"We played pretty well the last two rounds, but we got off to a poor start," head coach Rod Myers said Wednesday. "It was very windy at Newport yesterday and cold in the morning. I think we just played some poor golf out there and didn't do as well as I had hoped we would do."
Duke scored a 30-over-par 318, due to several mishaps. Senior Joe Ogilvie, who normally paces the team with his consistently low scores, shot an 81 in the opening round. In addition, senior Justin Klein had his first-round score disqualified due to an out-of-bounds error.
"Justin didn't have an out of bounds marked right on the scorecard," Myers said. "He ended up playing a ball that had been out of bounds and didn't find out about it until later on."
Inconsistency, which has plagued the Blue Devils throughout the fall season of tournaments, proved to be the problem yet again--this time in Rhode Island.
Myers has been hoping for some stronger play from all of his players, but the Blue Devils have been struggling to find that needed consistency recently.
"I think our inconsistency right now still carries the killer for us," Myers said. "We didn't get five guys in the swing of things again. [Senior] Danny Brawley hadn't played very well for the second tournament in a row. That always hurts you a few strokes. Joe Ogilvie played two good rounds, but he shot 81 the first round. We can't afford to have him shooting those kind of rounds."
In fact, the Blue Devils were only bested by two other teams--ETSU and Arkansas--in the final two rounds of the tournament.
"I think most of it is that we have to be stronger disciplined mentally," Myers said. "I don't think we're looking at necessarily physical things. We just need to get a little tougher."
The Blue Devils were able to take some positive things away from this tournament, however. For a team that has not received an NCAA bid since the 1992-93 season, Myers and company are hoping that this team will be able to advance into the postseason. The team decisively bested regional foes N.C. State and Augusta College in the Adams Cup.
"Whether you get to the NCAA tournament or not depends on how you did against the teams in your region throughout the year," Myers said. "North Carolina State and Augusta are good wins for us because those are two teams that went to the NCAAs last year. If we can continue to play better than those teams, we're going to be in the selection. I'd like to feel that our team is too good to worry about getting into the NCAAs. To do that, you've got to be hitting on all cylinders, though."
The Blue Devils will need to be hitting on all cylinders this weekend if they hope to capture their own tournament this weekend at the Duke Golf Course. ETSU, which won the tournament last year, should prove to be Duke's main competition in another tough field.
"We've got our tournament coming up on Sunday and Monday, and hopefully we can pull it all together there," Myers said. "My feeling is that we'll really be ready to make it happen at our tournament."
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