July 2, 2002

courtesy of Blue Devil Weekly
By John Roth

The Duke women's golf team has won more tournaments over the last four seasons than Tiger Woods has in his PGA Tour career, so the Blue Devils know a thing or two about facing and conquering a wide variety of conditions and circumstances.

But none of their many crowns was packaged as patiently and delivered as dramatically as the most recent one.

Trailing Arizona after each of the first three days and still in arrears heading down the stretch of the final round, the Blue Devils sizzled with five birdies on the last three holes to pass the Wildcats and claim their second NCAA championship in four years.

The title was Duke's eighth of the 2001-02 season and seventh straight this spring. In those previous six consecutive wins, the Devils had held the lead going into the final round - by as many as 27 shots at the ACC tourney in April and by as few as one stroke at NCAA regionals in May. These nationals at Auburn, Wash., marked the first time this year they trailed nearly an entire event before rallying at the end.

Arizona had played so well that veteran Duke coach Dan Brooks was resigned to a second straight second-place finish with a couple of holes remaining. He was following Duke's Virada Nirapathpongporn and Arizona standout Lorena Ochoa, the final group on the course, when he decided to head for the clubhouse as Ochoa appeared poised to birdie the 17th hole.

"I wanted to get in to the green where everyone was finishing and pat them on the back for a job well done. I drove in thinking we were runnerup, at best," said Brooks, who figured his team was at least four shots off the pace.

But strange things had been happening on the closing holes of the Washington National layout. Defending NCAA champ Candy Hannemann had gone on a roll for the Blue Devils with a par on 15 and back-to-back birdies on 16 and 17. Duke sophomore Leigh Anne Hardin also came up with a birdie on 17. And after Brooks had left that last group, Ochoa had put her fairway shot on 17 into the water en route to a bogey as Nirapathpongporn pounced with a birdie.

Suddenly, the Devils had not only come from behind but stormed to the lead and won by six strokes.

"It was will power," said Nirapathpongporn. "We were really hungry for that trophy, and I could feel from the beginning that the five of us really wanted it. It helps, when you get a little nervous, to look around and see these other four people want the same thing as you. They are going to work hard and go out and get it, and you want to do the same thing. You want to help the team."

"Because it came out positive in the end, you couldn't have scripted it out any better than that - to get a little better every day, fall back a little the last round, then come back at the end and win. It was as much fun as I've ever had with a tournament," Brooks said.

"The kids on the team were absolutely great. They were completely patient throughout the whole tournament. They kept fighting, never got discouraged, never panicked at all. That's how we were able to have the right mentality at the very end, because we didn't let it throw us off when things didn't go well in the middle of that last round. We just kept playing, knowing and believing the possibilities at the end could happen. You can't say enough about having that ability to wait like that until the end."

Nirapathpongporn didn't wait until the end. She led the individual race from start to finish to become the Blue Devils' second straight NCAA champ. Her 9-under-par score of 279 equaled the best score in NCAA tournament history and gave her a five-stroke margin of victory over a trio of players who tied for second. That included Ochoa, who last year lost the NCAA title in a playoff with Hannemann.

Hannemann took herself out of contention for a repeat when she shot a 78 in the second round. But her fast-charging 68 in the fourth round was critical to Duke's comeback.

"Nobody knows it but her par on 15 the last day was as good a hole as anybody played in that tournament," Brooks said. "She had the ball in a deep fairway bunker on the left side with water cutting in front of the green. She had to hit a fairway bunker shot, and it nipped the grass on the edge of the bunker and flew over the back of the green, and she got it up and down for par. I think that hole really propelled her into the two birdies on 16 and 17. That put her in a great mindset. And that's Candy. She's one of those special people. At the big show, Candy is going to be there."

While Hannemann tied for 22nd place, Hardin closed with a 71 and 72 to grab 13th place. Freshman Niloufar Aazam-Zanganeh took 75th, but she helped make up shots at the end with her 75 the last round.

The NCAA title was Duke's sixth in a team sport (three in basketball, two in golf, one in soccer) and the 33rd win for Brooks' team over the last four seasons. (Tiger Woods, by the way, owns 32 career wins on the PGA Tour, though he has also won some other international and speciality events.) In the 12 "majors" they've played in during those four years, the Devils own nine titles (four conference, three regional, two national). And for a final word on consistent excellence, consider this: In the last five NCAA tourneys, Duke has those two first-place showings, plus a second and a fourth.

"I don't think the two (NCAA) titles are the big thing for me," said Brooks several days afterward. "The thing that is most amazing to me are the people I've been able to coach. It's just fascinating. I think I'm spending more of my time being amazed and thankful about that than to be the coach who won two championships. I dwell more on the people. It's great to be a part of Duke athletics and have two championships here."

The 18-year Duke coaching veteran also took a moment to reflect back on a time when he felt his career was at somewhat of a crossroads. That moment came shortly after he guided his fourth Duke team to a fifth-place finish at the 1988 NCAA tourney, at the time the highest national finish for any women's program in Duke sports history.

"We finished nine shots out of winning the championship and that was really good," Brooks recalled. "I had never had this dream of being a women's golf coach. I was enjoying the job but I thought this might be a good time to move on and do something else. Now (14) years later we've got two championships, and I'm fired up and ready to win another one."

With five of his six players returning and a top recruit on the way, that opportunity could come as early as next season.