ASU men’s and women’s golfers both know they have the talent to win the national championship.

This season, the teams hope to prove it.

The women’s squad finished fifth at last year’s NCAA Championships, and senior Azahara Munoz returns to the course this season as the NCAA’s individual champion.

Add two highly-regarded European recruits and the No. 4 Sun Devils are in good position to make a run at the title.

“We think the ranking is too low,” coach Melissa Luellen said. “We’ll take it in stride.”

One of the freshmen, Carlota Ciganda of Spain, has been the No. 1 female amateur in Europe for the past two years and won the European Ladies Amateur Championship for the second time in four years last week.

The 18-year-old also defeated her new teammate, junior Anna Nordqvist, in the 2007 Ladies’ British Amateur Open.

The other, Giulia Molinaro of Italy, is the reigning Italian Junior National Champion.

The additions of Ciganda and Molinaro should spark fierce competition to remain in the top five and stay on the traveling team.

“They know they better work hard,” Luellen said. “There’s going to be some great players sitting at home.”

Munoz said ASU is getting a great talent in Ciganda.

“I can’t wait for them to come,” she said. “Carlota is one of my closest friends.

“[But] the more good players you have, the better you have to play.”

Ciganda and Molinaro are two of five ASU women golfers named to play in the World Amateur Team Championships beginning Oct. 9 in Adelaide, Australia.

Each participating nation chooses its top three players to represent their country in the championships.

Ciganda will join Munoz to represent Spain. Molinaro, along with Nordqvist of Sweden, and junior Juliana Murcia of Columbia will also represent their respective countries.

Since ASU will be without five of their best players, the women decided to play an abbreviated schedule in the fall.

But don’t let that fool you.

Luellen said the team will prove themselves in the second half of what she calls “a tale of two seasons.”

“We have a team that can legitimately win the championship,” Luellen said. “Fall is all about preparation.”

Their season begins Sunday in Owing Mills, Md. with the NCAA Fall Preview, which offer a trial-run of the course and the competition they will face for the NCAA Championship in May.

Younger men’s team on fast track too

The Sun Devils enter 2008 with a roster filled with freshmen and sophomores, but coach Randy Lein said this team is ready.

“They may be 18 or 19 years old, but they have a plenty of experience,” Lein said. “They’ve been playing tournaments since they were young.”

The team tied for 17th at the NCAA Championships last year.

But ASU also won the Pac-10 Conference Title, an especially impressive feat since the top three teams at the NCAA Championship came from the conference.

“We feel like we can beat anybody,” Lein said.

The men’s top returning player is sophomore Jesper Kennegard, who received Honorable Mention All-American honors last year as a freshman.

Also returning is sophomore Stephan Gross, who Lein said improved greatly in the offseason.

“He had an incredibly good summer,” Lein said.

Gross recently won the European Amateur Championship and earned a spot in the 2009 British Open.

Sophomore James Byrne also had a good summer, breaking a course record with an 11-under (61) round at the Order of Merit Tournament in Scotland.

As the players return to ASU, the team hopes to prove itself in the NCAA Men’s Preview from Sept. 28-30 in Toledo, Ohio. Lein said the event offers an opportunity to make a statement.

“There’s a lot of good teams, but we want them to know we can contend for the national championship,” Lein said.

Junior Knut Borsheim said the team is plenty deep this season.
“We have potential,” Borsheim said. “We have really good depth.

“What we need is to relax and just let it happen.”

The team was to start its season this weekend at the Rees Jones Intercollegiate in Haig Point, S.C., this weekend, but the tournament was postponed until November due to hurricane activity in the area.

ASU’s season will now begin with the Olympia Fields Invitational taking place from Sept. 19-21 in Chicago, IL.