Virginia Elena Carta, an easy-to-like Italian with a brain as big as her heart, will leave Duke University next spring with so much more than a national championship ring. College golf doesn’t have the allure it once did. The best players skip it altogether. The next-best generally stay for a season or two. Those who experience the kind of first-year success that Carta enjoyed – NCAA individual championship followed by a runner-up finish at the U.S. Women’s Amateur – usually bolt to the nearest exit.

Carta, however, stayed. And what followed wasn’t easy, as she fell ill with tonsillitis her sophomore year and suffered an elbow injury. Junior year, with her tonsils removed, chest and shoulder pain popped up, likely caused, she said, by poor form in the weight room.