Diverse Duke Finally Breaks Through In Match Play

When Duke won its seventh NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship on Wednesday after defeating Atlantic Coast Conference rival Wake Forest, the words “it’s about time” came to mind.

You see, Duke, despite having captured six previous national women’s titles, the last in 2014, had not won an NCAA Championship in the match-play era, which dawned in 2015. They never won with the Maguire twins – Leona and Lisa – despite Leona being the No. 1 ranked amateur woman in the world during her time in Durham, N.C. She won the Annika Award, the Mark H. McCormack Medal and was Global Golf Post’s female amateur of the year. But no NCAA title.

The Blue Devils came close on multiple occasions. They lost in the semifinals (2015 and 2016), didn’t make match play in 2017 and lost in the quarterfinals last season. But despite a wealth of talent, they could never get over the match-play hump.

This year’s championship was different.

The Blue Devils have only six women on the roster, an incredibly low number by Division I standards given the fa...