Blue Devils Prepped & Ready for NCAA Championship - Duke University (2024)

Kelsey Groff / Duke Athletics

Women's Golf 5/16/2024 11:44:00 PM

CARLSBAD, Calif. – The ninth-ranked Duke women's golf team is prepped and ready for the 2024 NCAA Championship, which will be contested at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa North Course May 17-22 in Carlsbad, Calif. After being held the last three years in sunny and hot Arizona at Grayhawk Golf Club, the championship moves to much cooler weather in Southern California.

"They have done a great job of setting this course up for the women's game," said Duke head coach Dan Brooks. "Basically, that means the yardages off the tee, where they put the fairway bunkers and the distances they've built into the holes for the green size and the firmness of these new greens. They've done an excellent job thinking this through. I'm very impressed."

Making their 34th appearance at the NCAA Championship, the Blue Devils feature an experienced squad with three – Phoebe Brinker, Anne Chen and Andie Smith -- of their five starters competing a season ago in Arizona. Graduate student Emma McMyler and freshman Katie Li will be seeing action in their first championship and are Duke's highest-ranked golfers nationally at No. 38 and No. 72, respectively.

Duke has produced eight NCAA Championship squads and competed in 24 out of the last 27 NCAA Championships (2020 was canceled due to COVID).

Coming off a second-place finish at the Cle Elum Regional last week, the Blue Devils enter the NCAA Championship with momentum. Out of six regional sites, the Blue Devils were the only team to feature all five golfers finish in the top-20 of regional action. Duke has carded some very impressive rounds this season and etched itself into the NCAA record book along the way. The Blue Devils feature two wins – Landfall Tradition and Florida State Match Up – on the season, while Li and Brinker own individual wins.

"Very excited," added Brooks on the Blue Devils getting started Friday. "Everybody's healthy and they seem to be enjoying themselves. We're going to have a good time."

After arriving Tuesday, the Blue Devils were treated to an afternoon of practice at The Bridges of Rancho Santa Fe, which was coordinated by former Duke standout Sandy Choi. The team was able to get their first look at the North Course at La Costa on Wednesday with a walk through. On Thursday, the Blue Devils had their practice round on site.

"I'm excited," said Brinker. "I think that driving is going to be a big thing this week. So, hitting a lot of fairways and making a decision whether to lay back or really go for it off the tee will be huge, but other than that, it's a great golf course. We all played great today and we're ready."

The tournament will feature 54 holes of stroke play and then the top-15 teams will advance to Monday's final round of stroke play. Following 72 holes, the top-eight teams advance to match play on Tuesday. The championship match will take place on Wednesday. The Golf Channel will once again televise the final three days of action May 20-22.

"I'm not surprised that they did this great job," added Brooks on the redesign of the course. "John Fields and others have been excited about this for a long time. The fact that they invited coaches in from the male and the female side to walk the course with the architect that redesigned it. That made me think this was going to come out really well and it has."

Duke opens action Friday, May 17 at 12:55 p.m., local time and 3:55 p.m. (ET) off No. 10 and then will turn around on Saturday for a 7:35 a.m., local and 10:35 a.m. (ET) tee time off No. 1. The Blue Devils are joined in the group by Southern California and Texas.

Live scoring will be available at www.GolfStat.com and updates will be provided on Duke's social media accounts as well.

To stay up to date with Blue Devils women's golf, follow the team on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by searching "DukeWGOLF".

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