Love Closes Strong, Duke in Fourth Heading Into Final Round

Saturday, April 20

Charlotte, N.C.

Duke University

Round 2 at ACC Championship

Love Closes Strong, Duke in Fourth Heading Into Final Round

4/20/2024 4:18:00 PM | Men's Golf

Round 2 Results (PDF)Live Scoring

CHARLOTTE – Fueled by a 6-under closing nine from William Love, the Duke men's golf team surged up the leaderboard at the ACC Championship on Saturday. The Blue Devils currently sit in fourth place, at 6-under overall, heading into the final round of stroke play.

HOW IT HAPPENED

As a team, Duke fired a 5-under, 279, in the second round at Charlotte Country Club.
William Love carded a 3-under, 68, to lead the Blue Devils' efforts. After starting on hole 10, Love fired a 6-under, 30, on the front-nine, his final nine holes of play. Love began his round with three pars, before a double-bogey on both No. 13 and No. 16 pushed the sophomore over-par. A long birdie putt on the par-4 15th helped offset the dropped shots, as he made the turn at 3-over. Love then caught fire, beginning with a tap-in birdie on No. 1 and back-to-back birdies on holes No. 3 and 4. A 25-foot eagle putt dropped on the par-5 seventh and the round was capped off by a long-range uphill birdie on the ninth.
Both Ethan Evans and Ian Siebers signed for a 1-under, 70, in the second round.
Evans rolled in two birdies alongside two bogeys through his first nine holes of the day, moving to the front-nine at even-par. The sophomore poured in three birdies after making the turn, including two in a three-hole stretch spanning holes No. 5-7 to help erase a double-bogey previously made on No. 4.
Siebers played his first round of the weekend after substituting into the lineup and started with two birdies across the first three holes. Two dropped shots over his next three holes moved the senior back to even-par, however, and he remained there making the turn. Siebers then played bogey-free on the front-nine, while adding a lone birdie, on No. 7, to cap off his under-par round.
Luke Sample went even-par, 71, in the second round. The junior played bogey-free on the back-nine to start the day, while also rolling in a long-distance birdie putt on No. 15, to turn at 1-under. Two bogeys within the first four holes of the front-nine pushed Sample out of red numbers, but a hole-out eagle from just over 100 yards on No. 5 quickly returned him to 1-under. A lone bogey across his last four holes secured Sample's even-par second round.
Daniel Choi responded from three bogeys on the back-nine by rolling in three birdies on the front-nine, including on two of his final three holes of the day. A lone double-bogey on the front-nine led to a 2-over, 73, second-round score.

NOTES

Duke is second in the field for par-5 scoring, at 10-under, through two rounds of play.
With the two eagles in the second round, Duke is the only team in the field to record multiple eagles in a round.
Ethan Evans' 10 total birdies through two rounds are tied for second-most by any individual in the field.
William Love birdied the par-3 third hole, which played as the second-hardest hole on the course during the second round with only four total birdies and a scoring average of 3.28.

QUOTES

"It was a tough start. I hit a couple of loose shots early that caused me a bit of trouble but had a quick talk with Coach when making the turn and he told me to go play my own game, go do what I can. I just focused up, hit a lot of good shots coming in, and some of the putts fell. It kind of all pieced together coming in, which was great." – Duke sophomore William Love on his 3-under round.
"We started on No. 10 this time, and there's a few gettable holes and we made a couple birdies, but we also had some hiccups. We were close to moving out of range – there are a lot of good teams in the ACC and a lot of them are bunched up within four or five shots – but the response was really on the second nine today. You could see William [Love] was trying his best to keep his spirits up, but he made a couple double-bogeys on the first nine. Those are hard to scratch and claw out of, but I put a challenge to him, and he responded with incredible golf." – Duke head coach Jamie Green

UP NEXT

Weather permitting, Duke will begin its third round on the first hole at 9 a.m., playing alongside Wake Forest and Virginia.
The top-four teams in the field following the final round of stroke play will advance to match play on Monday morning.

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

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