© Provided by GolfweekDuke Blue Devils Gamecock Intercollegiate
After the 2020 season was canceled a year ago, it's easy these days to forget who college golf's defending champions are from 2019.
The Duke women are here to remind you. While just one player from the title team, junior Gina Kim, was in the lineup this week, the new crop of talent picked up where the champions left off.
The Blue Devils, starting two freshman and two sophomores alongside Kim, swept the Gamecock Intercollegiate at Columbia Country Club in Blythewood, South Carolina, on Wednesday, beating a field full of the nation's best teams. In its second event of the spring, Duke claimed the team trophy at even par, three strokes ahead of runner-up Wake Forest - the lone team under par in the final round - and six clear of hosts South Carolina.
Sophomore Erica Shepherd, winner of last fall's Golfweek Hoosier Amateur, topped the individual leaderboard at 7 under thanks to consistent rounds of 69-70-70. South Carolina's Lois Kaye Go finished second at 4 under, with Duke's Phoebe Brinker, LSU's Ingrid Lindblad and Alabama's Benedetta Moresco's T-3 at 2 under.
Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings: Women's team | Women's individual
College golf blog: The Road to Grayhawk
Inclement weather in the forecast forced teams to start the third round on Tuesday afternoon to make sure the entire 54 holes would be played. All teams had completed at least eight holes of the final round before play was called on Tuesday night and resumed Wednesday morning.
The Blue Devils finished third last week in their first event of the spring at the Palmetto Intercollegiate and will tee it up next in Augusta, Georgia at Forest Hills Golf Club for the Valspar Augusta Invitational, March 13-14.
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