Beck Posts Career-Best Round; Leads After Day One

Sunday, February 27

New Orleans, La.

All Day

Duke University

Day One at Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Championship

Beck Takes Lead at Bryan National Collegiate

Beck Posts Career-Best Round; Leads After Day One

2/27/2011 10:04:00 PM | Women's Golf

By: Duke Sports Information

NEW ORLEANS, La. - Duke University freshman Laetitia Beck opened the first round of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Golf Championships on Sunday with a career-best six-under-par, 66, that helped propel the fifth-ranked Blue Devil golf team into second place, just two strokes behind Tulane.

Duke finished day one with a two-over-par, 290, two strokes behind first-place Tulane (288). Louisiana State (291) is currently in third, one stroke behind the Blue Devils, Arizona State (293) is fourth and Vanderbilt (294) rounds out the top five.

"We have come out of a challenging winter -- the difficult thing about playing in a cold winter is not that you can't train as we have been training, been outside and have been practicing," said Duke Head Coach Dan Brooks. "The challenging thing is there is no way that you can shoot really low numbers day after day practicing in cold weather. But when you get to a tournament it is possible that you will need low numbers so you are concerned you haven't been mentally conditioning yourself to shoot low so you have to be very patient because you know you are going to need to shoot low in a tournament."

Beck, who is a product of Caesarea, Israel, led Duke with a career low six-under-par, 66, as she started the first round in stellar fashion with six birdies and an eagle, and bogeyed just two holes through the first 18 of the championship. Beck is currently the individual leader with a three-stroke lead over second-place Jacqueline Hedwall from LSU. On the day, she hit 16 greens, had only 28 putts and hit nine fairways.

"The greens are very small and the wind was blowing hard -- according to what she told me she hit 16 greens -- that is just a tremendous number of greens when the wind isn't blowing, but to do that when the wind is blowing you have to be striking it well," commented Brooks. "In order to shoot six under you have to hit a number of greens -- that is just the way it is. I am just real proud of Laetitia."

Beck's round of 66 ranks as the tied for second-lowest by a Duke freshman in school history. Virada Nirapathpongporn had a 65 in 2000-01, while Brittany Lang and Beth Bauer each had rounds of 66 during their rookie years.

Lindy Duncan, a sophomore from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., carded a one-over-par, 73, on Sunday as she led the Blue Devils with 27 putts to go along with 10 greens and seven fairways hit on the day. She opened the day notching birdies on No. 6 and No. 8 to move to two-under-par, but had a double-bogey on the ninth to make the turn at even par, 36.

Sophomore Stacey Kim and freshman Alejandra Cangrejo notched rounds of 75 and 76, respectively.

Senior Kim Donovan turned in an eight-over-par 80, and sophomore Courtney Ellenbogen, competing as an individual, shot a nine-over-par 81. Donovan hit nine greens, 12 fairways and had 32 putts on the day.

"I thought the team was very patient out there today," said Brooks. "We had 20 mph winds, had very, very small greens on a golf course we haven't ever seen before and we just seemed to stay patient, worked hard and I was very impressed."

The Blue Devils had a total of 12 birdies on the day with one eagle. Competition will resume from the 6,105-yard, par 72 English Turn Golf and Country Club tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.

Live scoring will be available for the remaining two days at www.golfstat.com.

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Duke Results
1 - Laetitia Beck - 66, -6
T15 - Lindy Duncan - 73, +1
T33 - Stacey Kim - 75, +3
T47 - Alejandra Cangrejo - 76, +4
T73 - Kim Donovan - 80, +8

Team Results
1. Tulane (E), 2. Duke (+2), LSU (+3), 4. Arizona State (+5), 5. Vanderbilt (+6), 6. Alabama (+7), 7. USC (+9), T8. Virginia (+10), T8. Florida (+10), 10. Tennessee (+12), T11. Purdue (+14), T11. Auburn (+14), T11. Texas A&M (+14), 14. Ole Miss (+15), 15. Kentucky (+17), 16. Denver (+18), 17. North Carolina (+19)

Individual Results (Top-10 only)
1. Laetitia Beck, Duke (-6), T2. Megan McChrystal, LSU (-3), T2. Jacqueline Hedwall, LSU (-3), T4. Ashley McKenney, Tulane (-2), T4. Isabelle Lendl, Florida (-2), T4. Megan Grehan, Vanderbilt (-2), T7. Janine Fellows, Tulane (-1), T7. Maribel Lopez Porras, Tulane (-1), T7. Mia Piccio, Florida (-1), T7. Giulia Molinaro, Arizona State (-1)

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