Although the epicenter of Arizona golf may seem to be the Valley of the Sun, numerous amateurs statewide have made seismic waves of their own. Briggs Duce is one of them.
The Sierra Vista resident and senior on the University of Arizona Men’s Golf Team debuted in the JGAA Boys Championship division in 2014 at the age of 16. He started and ended that year with solid play, posting a second-place finish in his first-ever JGAA tournament in May, Tucson City Junior Championship. He then wrapped up with a fourth-place finish in December.
Duce packed 17 events into his 2015 JGAA schedule, piling up 11 top-10s along the way. During the weeks straddling May/June, Duce enjoyed a solid stretch with a second-place finish at the Tucson City Jr Championship, fifth place at the Willie Low Invitational and a T8 at the Thunderbird Junior Classic. He then returned home to post a T2 at the Thompson Invitational before finishing strong in the last three events of the season – T4, T3 and T2 – at the State Junior Golf Championship, Arizona Junior Match Play and PING Arizona Junior Masters, respectively.
Duce throttled-back appearances in 2016 with only two starts, one of which was a second-place finish at the Thunderbird Invitational, a prestigious Junior Masters Series tournament. No doubt, the upcoming move to the next level was on his mind.
“It was always a dream of mine (to go to UA),” he said in an interview with the Herald/Review. “Once I was offered, it wasn’t a tough decision.”
At UA, Duce clawed his way up from seven tournament as a freshman to eight as a sophomore to nine as a junior, accompanied by steady improvement in key statistics. His scoring average tapered from 75.14 to 70.83. He trimmed six strokes from his best 18 holes, 70 to 64, and likewise, Duce’s best 54-hole tournament score contracted from 1-over-par 217 to 8-under-par 202.
In his last year, Duce finished 32nd at the Pac-12 Championships, firing two rounds in the 60s, and to date he has played 20 tournaments and 61 rounds as a Wildcat with an overall scoring average of 74.11.
Before college golf, the three-time Colt’s captain at Buena High School led his team as second-team All-Arizona who finished fifth at the 2015 Division I state championship and eighth in 2014.
Upon review of Duce’s accomplishments so far, a clear pattern of consistent progress appears. Far from a flash in the pan, Duce grinds it out with more of a slow-burn style that gains momentum as the years go by.
Duce is now a professional golfer on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica. The former Wildcat has made four consecutive cuts in 2023 and his best finish is a top-20 showing in the 116 VISA Argentina Open presentado por Macro.
