Junior Jon Rahm Rodriguez watches to see if his putt will find the whole during the ASU Thunderbird Invitational on April 7, 2013. Rahm Rodriguez led the Sun Devils with a score of -1. (Photo by Murphy Bannerman)
After a solid first half of the season, the ASU men’s golf team is getting ready for the spring semester as the team seeks a third national title in school history and the first conference championship since 2008.
In four tournaments during the fall semester, the Sun Devils finished second as a team three-straight times after finishing sixth at the Itani Quality Homes Collegiate tournament.
Individually there were six top-10 finishes on the team, led by junior Max Rottluff from Dusseldorf, Germany. Junior Jon Rahm from Barrika, Spain, had two top-10 finishes. Both Rahm and Rottluff took home an individual title in the fall.
Rottluff and Rahm both finished in the top five in the Palmer Cup rankings for the fall. If they can stay in the top six, they will be able to compete for Team Europe at the Palmer Cup at Rich Harvest Farms in June.
Head coach Tim Mickelson seemed to settle on a lineup by the final tournament of the fall but with the inclusion of redshirt sophomore Grayson Murray to the eligible roster, expect to see some different names at each tournament.
Murray, from Raleigh, North Carolina, attended Wake Forest in the fall of 2012, when he competed in three tournaments and finished in the top 10 once.
After the team’s last tournament of 2014, Mickelson said the schedule for the spring looks more challenging then the one they faced in the fall, but that is by design.
“We will see a lot more teams in the top 25, top 50. It’s sort of how we purposefully set the schedule,” he said. “It’s a fairly easy schedule in the fall, but in the spring, we’ve got a lot of tough tournaments and a lot of tough teams.”
Since the Sun Devils were unable to get a team title in the fall, Mickelson is hoping the challenging spring schedule will help the team continue to improve.
“That’s going to help us get a lot of experience and have a lot of chances to beat those better teams in the spring,” he said.
The team’s first tournament of the spring will be in Tucson for the Arizona Intercollegiate on Jan. 26 and 27. Aside from the opportunity to face No. 21 California, competing at Arizona’s home event gives the Sun Devils plenty of reason to play well. After missing the tournament in Tucson last year, Mickelson and the team are ready to compete against the Wildcats.
“We really wanted to get back in their event,” he said. “But it is certainly a rivalry and certainly when we go down there they’re going to want to beat us, and we’re going to want to beat them. It’s going to be a great feeling if we’re able to go down there and beat them on their home turf.”
Reach the reporter at wslane@asu.edu or on Twitter @bill_slane
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