After a disappointing performance last week in San Diego, the ASU men’s golf team made some lineup adjustments with its freshmen.
Cameron Palmer will replace David Lowe in the lineup, and Stan Gautier will start in favor of Austin Quick.
On the season, Gautier holds just over a two-stroke edge per round of golf over Quick, but has not yet competed this spring.
Quick struggled in the fall, but turned around his game in the spring. In the first spring invitational, Quick led ASU in scoring with a 5-under par.
He finished 15-over on a tough course the following week, and ASU head coach Tim Mickelson decided it was time for a change.
Mickelson said after not being able to practice over winter break, Gautier rediscovered his stroke and is playing better than Quick.
“We just feel like we need to make a change right now and get somebody else in there and see if they’re able to play,” Mickelson said. “Stan, in our vision, is playing a little better than Austin right now.
“Stan played real well for us in the fall. He went home over Christmas, and because he went home to Paris, the weather was bad. He was not able to pick up a golf club, and when he came back, he was struggling for a bit.”
The other lineup switch was a little more expected.
Palmer competed as an individual in the recent invitational, and finished better than the four other Sun Devils who played three rounds. Palmer’s strong performance was enough to insert him into the rotation.
Lowe has struggled this spring, with an average score of 79 per round of golf.
ASU seeks a bounce-back performance in the North Ranch Intercollegiate Open while playing against a weaker field than the two prior tournaments.
“This field is definitely easier,” Mickelson said. “There’s a lot of teams that are ranked between 40th in the country to 100th in the country, so they’re not as strong as the teams we played. If we play to our ability, we should have a chance to win the tournament or certainly finish top three or four.”
If the team is going to turn its season around, the effort must come from the team’s top golfer, senior Spencer Fletcher. He is averaging 3.75 more strokes per round of golf in the spring season than he did in the fall.
Fletcher said his drives drove the ball off the fairway, forcing him to make up strokes on difficult greens.
“(My) ball-striking wasn’t quite on,” Fletcher said. “I was missing a bunch of greens. I was putting myself in tough spots off the tee. I just put so much pressure on my short game when the greens were so sloped and so fast.”
When a golfer struggles on the course, the mental aspect can affect the next couple shots. If a golfer misses a par putt, he’ll think about it on the next hole.
“No matter how mad you get, no one’s going to let you re-do the last three holes,” Fletcher said. “The most important shot in golf is the next one. One of the best golfers ever said that golf is 90 percent mental and 10 percent mental.”
Reach the reporter at jmjanss1@asu.edu
