No. 19 ASU men's golf finished its first tournament of the year tied for 11th, with senior Ki Taek Lee being the lone standout for the Sun Devils tying for second in individual play.
"Saw some good things for sure," head coach Matt Thurmond said. "But at the end of the day, it is a very disappointing tournament for us."
Barring that it is the first tournament of the year for ASU, most would expect some bumps in the road for this inexperienced bunch during their three-day tournament at Olympia Fields Country Club in Olympia Field, Illinois.
The Sun Devils had three players participate in their first college tournament ever at OFCC, which is a challenging U.S. Open level golf course. In the final round, ASU still had a chance to move up the leader boards.
"The final round was a bit of a roller coaster," Thurmond said. "We were actually playing really well in the final round. As by far the best round of the day going and had a pretty catastrophic finish. You expect that sometimes a little with younger players, but it was really bad and we lost a lot of spots unfortunately."
Going into his final year for the Maroon and Gold, Lee played some of the best golf of his career on the par 70 course with scores of 67, 73 and 69 in the first three rounds, consecutively.
"Ki's a really good player," Thurmond said. "There is a tremendous amount of ability in Ki. I think he is going to be a stud player. I think he's going to be somebody who makes money playing golf and has a great senior season."
Fellow senior golfer Jared Du Toit struggled early in the invitational shooting an 81 in round one, his worst round ever as a member of ASU golf.
"I don't know if Jared has or ever will shoot a round like that," Thurmond said. "So that hurt. The first day was kind of a disastrous round for us."
Du Toit picked up his play in rounds 2 and 3 finishing with a score of 72 both days, tying for 48th-place in the individual field.
As for the three first time competitors for ASU, freshman Alex Del Rey Gonzalez finished tied for 29th-place, freshman Blake Wagoner tied for 60th-place and transfer junior Ryan Douglass tied for 72nd-place.
"We take so much from this, we grew up," Thurmond said. "It was months worth of experience packed into three days. That's still valuable to us, and a great team even has ups and downs. I believe that every guy that was there is going to be much better from the tournament."
Du Toit will be participating for the Canadian National Team this upcoming week in the World Amateur Championships in Cancun, Mexico which begins Wednesday.
"We really debated, and Jared debated, and his national team debated on whether or not he should have even played the tournament," Thurmond said.
"This World Amateur is one where he really needs to be on top of his game. Going into the tournament, Jared was a little insecure with his game and that kind of all came out in the first round. But by yesterday, he was really feeling confident and comfortable with his swing and overall game. It's funny, he didn't play well but in a way it was the perfect preparation for the World Am."
The Sun Devils have some time to reflect on their performance at OFCC. They won't be back in action until Oct. 10-11 in Fairfax, California for the Alister Mackenzie Invitational.
"There are some definite things to address," Thurmond said. "There were plenty of good signs ahead, too, and I think we're going to be much better next tournament."
Reach the reporter at thandlan@asu.edu or follow @Tyler_Handlan on Twitter.
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