Take a title, Maria: Duke claims 5th straight ACC crown

CLEMMONS, N.C. - It wasn't a surprise that the women's golf team won its fifth-straight ACC championship.

It wasn't that surprising that Duke won by 34 strokes. And although freshman Maria Garcia-Estrada had never won a tournament before, her individual victory didn't shock many people either.

In fact, the only possible surprise to emerge from this weekend's ACC Championships at Salem Glen were the words spoken by coach Dan Brooks 10 minutes after the final putt dropped.

"This is the best team I've ever coached," he said. "We've got six really good players.... I feel as good as you can feel at this point. We've got some time off now, but I've never felt so good about a team that I know will do everything they can during that low-competition time to stay prepared."

Wait, better than last year's national championship team?

As surprising as it sounds, Brooks isn't alone in his assertion. Sophomore Candy Hannemann, for one, agrees with him.

"It's unbelievable how every girl has the potential to win every week," Hannemann said. "I don't think last year that was the situation. Any girl on our team can win any tournament."

Case in point, Garcia-Estrada. The freshman from Spain had recorded three top-10 finishes this year, but never finished on top. But when she tapped in a three-foot par putt on 18, she sealed a two-stroke win over teammates Beth Bauer and Hannemann to earn her first collegiate win-and an ACC title.

"On the practice tee, I wasn't hitting the ball real well," Garcia-Estrada said. "I told one of my Spanish friends, 'I can't believe this. I'm not hitting the ball well at all.' But from the first hole, it felt real well. I started hitting the ball real well and the score just started to come out."

With the team race decided long ago, yesterday quickly became a three-Devil race for the individual title among Garcia-Estrada, Hannemann and Bauer. All three played consistent par golf throughout the final round, but neither Bauer nor Hannemann could overtake their teammate, who was the only golfer to finish the tournament on the happy side of par at 1-under.

"It was very exciting," Hannemann said. "I didn't want any of them to do bad, but I wanted to do really well at the same time. It was competitive, but in a really healthy way."

For Hannemann, the showdown was especially healthy because she has struggled for the majority of the spring.

"It was really exciting for me to be in it because I haven't been in contention for the whole semester," Hannemann said. "I think it's just golf where you go through your ups and downs; you just have to work on minimizing the downs."

Despite poor conditions the first two days, a quick run to K-Mart provided the Blue Devils with warmer clothes, and from then on, it was smooth sailing. The entire Championships served as an opportunity for Duke to flex its muscle, and all five starting Blue Devils carded a top-six finish. Kalen Anderson finished in fourth place at 7-over and freshman Kristina Engstrom finished in sixth place at 8-over par.

And while the ACC Championships were a nice tune up, bigger things lie ahead for the defending national champs.

"I think we're doing really well," Hannemann said. "I think we're playing some good competition between ourselves, and I think that's important. We always keep it competitive between the five of us.... We'll see at Nationals. I definitely think we're ready for it."