Despite home course advantage, the men's golf team concluded its rounds at the Duke Golf Classic today with a disappointing third-place finish behind UNC and Illinois.
The Blue Devils were second after Sunday's action but dropped a spot after North Carolina held onto its overall lead and No. 24 Illinois posted the best score of the day with a two-under 286. Duke finished with a score of 871, behind the Tar Heels' 868 and the Illini's 869. Tulsa placed fourth with Kansas State finishing fifth.
"Coming down the stretch we went from 10-under [after 14 holes] to one-over on a stretch of four holes that we should be really good at because it's our home course and we play it all the time," junior Tom Lefebvre said. "There should be no excuse for us to come out like that."
UNC's Dustin Bray won the individual title with a score of 207. Toledo's Justin Bertsch (212) captured second place, and coming in third was Patrick Nagle of Illinois with a 213.
Sophomore Nathan Smith was the lowest Duke finisher, tying for fourth overall with a 216. Smith's final two rounds of 71 and 70 kept him in the competition with the top-three performers.
Following Smith, sophomore Ryan Blaum tied for sixth with a 217. For the first two rounds, Blaum was tied with Nagle, but scored a two-over par in his third round. Tying for eighth was senior Mike Castleforte, who finished with a scorecard of 218. Lefebvre tied for 52nd with a 230, and tying for 55th was senior Rob Beasley (231).
Freshman James Dickey, who competed as an individual in his collegiate debut, tied for 20th with a score of 222, including a one-under par in Sunday's second round.
"I thought I scored well for the way I played. I scraped together something out of nothing," Dickey said.
Besides Dickey, two other young Duke golfers hit the green as individuals while not counting towards the team score. With a 227, sophomore Alex Wilson tied for 25th. Freshman Jake Grodzinsky rounded out the Duke squad with a 249 for an 80th-place finish.
The Blue Devils head to Stanford next, where they take part in the Nelson, their last of five tournaments in the shorter fall season. That leaves Duke plenty of time to get the kinks out of its system and learn how to finish tournaments off, Lefebvre said.
"That's the important part. We need to fire ourselves up. Obviously we made some mistakes here, but we need to talk to Coach [Roof] and figure out how to make some of those things go away.... Something like this is a great learning experience."
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