Heading into the second round of the NCAA Championships, the men's golf team needed something just short of a miracle to make the 36-hole cut.
All the Blue Devils got, however, was a good round.
Duke fired a 303 Thursday at Hazeltine National Golf Course in Chaska, Minn., to jump from 27th to 18th place, but the Blue Devils still missed the cut by six strokes. Although its round of 15-over-par was the sixth best of the day, Duke needed even better to make up for its dismal 311 the day before.
"When we came out the second day it was in the afternoon and we saw that the scores were much higher," coach Rod Myers said. "We figured if we had a really good round, single digits over par, we could possibly make the cut. We had the sixth best round of the day, but we just didn't do it. We knew we buried ourselves in a hole after that first day."
Although the Blue Devils failed to make the cut, freshman Matt Krauss played well enough to continue the tournament as an individual. The top nine players on teams that fail to qualify earn the right to continue, and Krauss played his way into the competition with a par on a one-hole playoff.
"He really managed his game well," Myers said. "You couldn't play this course from the rough, and he drove the ball straight. He's not long off the tee by college standards-Mike Christensen probably hits his 3-wood further than Matt hits his driver-but he never let that get to him. He played his game, and although he gives up some distance off the tee, he has awfully good long iron play."
Krauss fired a 75 Thursday and Friday his 1-over 73 moved him into 14th place. Saturday, Krauss fired another 75, giving him a four-day total of 298 (10-over-par). The final round moved him into 12th place overall, the highest finish for a Blue Devil since John Karcher tied for third in 1990.
"He just played solidly the whole way," Myers said. "He showed the maturity of a senior. He didn't make many mental mistakes, he didn't cost himself many strokes and he never lost his cool. I was as much impressed with his mental game as I was with anything else."
It was a decided lack of solid play from his teammates that forced Krauss to play solo. The Blue Devils managed to trim eight strokes off its first round score, but all eight strokes came from Christensen.
Christensen was erratic in the first round and even managed a quadruple bogey on the par-5 seventh. He finished Wednesday's round with an 81, but rebounded nicely Thursday and fired a 73.
"He just seemed to get in a better mindset that second round," Myers said. "He's approached his swing like a technician and he's been worried about a lot of things. I told him to not worry and to just to go out there, aim at the flag and swing."
Christensen was the only Blue Devil to show marked improvement, and as a result, Duke could not advance to play in the next two rounds. And although the finish was not so spectacular, considering that at one point the Blue Devils were on the verge of not making Regionals, an 18th place finish is nothing to scoff at.
"I thought it was a very positive experience for us," Myers said. "From where we were at the start of the year, we've come a long way. We were still a little fragile in the Championships, but to finish 18th when we haven't been ranked in the top 20 all year is still pretty good. I think the boys are proud about that."
Duke loses starters Kyle Elfers and Marc Chatelain to graduation, but Krauss' strong play in the last two months certainly gives reason to believe that the Blue Devils' future is looking bright.
Krauss got off to a slower start than Myers had expected, but he's had a phenomenal spring, capped by an ACC individual championship and his performance in Chaska. The icing on the cake came Tuesday, when he was named an honorable mention All-American.
"He's played very well since he's been in the lineup," Myers said of the ACC freshman of the year. "To be honest, I expected him to do that. He played very well the summer before he came here and it probably got my expectations unrealistically high. But I'll say this, if he doesn't come around when he did, we don't make the NCAA Championships."
Notes: Georgia Tech, ranked third before the start of the Championships, also failed to make the cut. The Yellow Jackets shot a 626 over the first two rounds. Matt Kuchar, who has made a name for himself at professional tournaments like The Masters, finished in a tie for 120th place, shooting an 83 and a 76.
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