Then- Freshman Jon Rahm Rodriguez watches to see if his putt will find the whole during the ASU Thunderbird Invitational on April 7, 2013. Rahm is preparing to participate in the Phoenix Open. (Photo by Murphy Bannerman)The ASU men’s golf team won their first tournament of the season on Tuesday in Tucson in the 2015 Arizona Intercollegiate.
Junior Max Rottluff also won his second individual title of the season with a season-best score of 10-under-par. Rottluff led the tournament in birdies with 15.
“I’m very happy for the guys as they are seeing their hard work pay off,” coach Tim Mickelson said. “Any team win is a great one, but to have everyone shoot under par in the final round is an awesome and rare thing.”
The Sun Devils shot 12-under-par as a team, 11 strokes better than the team in second place, UTEP. Aside from Rottluff the team had two other golfers in the top-20. Sophomore Nicolo Galletti tied for sixth at 3-under-par over the three rounds and freshman Tobias Eden’s score of 2-over-par was good for 20th.
In the third and final round in Tucson on Tuesday, ASU had every single golfer shoot under par. Rottluff led the team on the day at 3-under, junior Alberto Sanchez followed at 2-under, with Eden, Galletti and senior Ben Shur all shooting 1-under on the final day.
Rottluff and Galletti were two of 12 golfers in the tournament to shoot under par over the three rounds. Rottluff says he’s put in a lot of work since getting back to Tempe after a snowy winter break in Germany that did not allow him to get a lot of work in.
“I’m really confident in my game right now,” Rottluff said. “I’ve been in a lot of big work the last couple of weeks.”
The most interesting part of the win for ASU was the absence of the team’s top player. Junior Jon Rahm is continuing to prepare for the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale this week and was not a part of the lineup in Tucson.
In a tournament with a couple of the nation’s top teams, the fact that the team was able to win by such a margin without Rahm is a good sign for the remainder of the season.
“I'm proud of this group of guys that we have,” Mickelson said. “This is just the start of what’s going to be a very special spring semester.”
Rottluff is taking home his second individual title of the season after winning the Alister MacKenzie Invitational in October. This is the seventh time a Sun Devil has won an individual title under coach Tim Mickelson. Rahm has won four of them.
In his first team event as a Sun Devil, Ben Shur started off the tournament with an 8-over-par in the first round. He bounced back well by shooting 1-under in the next two rounds and scored a birdie on the eighth hole in the final round.
“I was excited to see what Ben Shur could do in his first event as a team member,” said Mickelson. “After a rough start, he played like a veteran the final 36 holes of the event. I'm very happy for him.”
It also was important for the team to perform well in Tucson, the home meet of the rival Arizona Wildcats, who finished seventh at 13-over par.
“That’s like that icing on the cake,” Rottluff said. “No matter where you win it’s nice to have a win, but down in Tucson, it just shows that we are doing better so far this season.”
After ending the fall season with three straight second-place finishes, starting off the spring with both a team and individual win is a good sign for the Sun Devils.
"It might be a scary good season," Mickelson said.
Reach the reporter at wslane@asu.edu or on Twitter @bill_slane
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