Duke women's golf finishes 2nd with freshman-laden lineup

Four tournaments, four top-five finishes—most would call that a successful fall season.

No. 4 Duke was challenged by a daunting golf course and fought hard for three days to come away with a second-place finish at the Landfall Traditional in Wilmington, N.C. In the team's final fall tournament, all five team members individually placed in the top-20.

"I'm proud of them," head coach Dan Brooks said. "We got contributions from all parts of the lineup. Everybody worked hard and everybody came together as a team. I'm just proud of the fall and I think we went out playing well. Our last two rounds were really good."

The Blue Devils finished at eleven-over-par 875, eight strokes behind tournament champions No. 14 Alabama but 22 strokes ahead of No. 15 Clemson, the third-place team. In the first round, Duke shot seven-over-par 295 before carding rounds of even-par 288 and four-over-par 292 to arrive at the 875 total.

The tournament featured 18 teams, nine of which were ranked in the top 25 in Golfweek's latest rankings. A deep field came away from the tournament with some high scores—only three teams broke 900 strokes for the week on the difficult course.

"It's just a really good golf course," Brooks said. "It's not stupidly difficult. That's why you also saw some low numbers. That spread in scores shows how great the golf course is. The broad range of scores really tells a story."

Duke was led by standout freshman Yu Liu, who tied the low round of the weekend with a three-under-par 69 in the second round. She opened the tournament with a two-over-par 74 and finished with an even-par 72 to earn a second-place finish individually and her third top-10 in three fall starts. She finished two strokes behind Stephanie Meadow of Alabama, the tournament's individual champion.

"She played really well," Brooks said. "In this tournament, I think she had a feeling she might win it. It was right down to the wire. She was actually one stroke closer than the scores show—there was a little glitch in her scorecard. She was right there and feeling great about her game. I think she likes being in that position. She handled it well."

Senior Laetitia Beck recorded her second straight top-five to conclude a successful fall, shooting rounds of 73, 74 and 72 to finish at three-over-par and tied for fourth.

Sophomore Celine Boutier shot even-par in round one to lead the team before playing her last 36 holes of the fall at five-over-par to finish tied for eighth and earn her second consecutive top-ten on the demanding golf course.

Making her Duke debut, freshman Esther Lee rebounded after a difficult opening round 79 to card rounds of 71 and 74 to finish tied for 16th at eight-over-par.

"She struck it really well," Brooks said. "[She had] great ball-striking and [was] just a little rough on the putting.... She's talking like she's ready to get after it and get after that putting."

Lee's classmate, Sandy Choi, finished tied for 19th at nine-over-par after rounds of 76, 74 and 75.

The Blue Devils enter a long winter break, with their next tournament not commencing until February 2014.

"This is where I step away," Brooks said. "I hope that they'll continue to work on things and work hard. That can make a huge difference on how far we go. But it's not going to be me forcing them to do that. They're going to have an offseason."