Needing a top-three finish in Scottsdale to keep its slim postseason hopes alive, the ASU men’s golf team fell well short.
ASU finished in 16th place in the Wyoming Cowboy Classic out of 23 schools with a 15-over par score on the par-70 course.
ASU shot 1-over during the first two rounds and carded a 13-over final round.
In prior invitationals, ASU ranked below a majority of the competing schools, but this time the script was flipped.
ASU came in as the fifth-highest team in the field, entering play at No. 69 in the country according to Golfweek rankings.
However, the superior ranking did not translate to the course, as 11 schools ranked below ASU finished ahead of the Sun Devils.
Freshman Austin Quick led ASU for the third consecutive invitational, shooting an even par over the three rounds.
Junior Jin Song shot the same score as Quick, but his rounds did not count toward the team’s total because he competed as an individual.
ASU has altered its starting five players after eight of the first 10 invitationals this season in an attempt to put the “hot” player into the starting lineup.
However, the Wyoming Cowboy Classic marks the second consecutive invitational where an ASU individual finished second or higher on the team.
At the ASU Karsten Golf Course last weekend, freshman Stan Gautier recorded the second-best score from a Sun Devil golfer.
In response to his strong performance, coach Tim Mickelson inserted Gautier into the lineup and took out Song, who finished below Gautier and the other four starters.
Senior Spencer Fletcher and freshman Mathias Schjoelberg, two players competing as the No. 1 and No. 2 golfers for a majority of the season, finished plus-12 and plus-13 respectively.
Postseason hopes diminishing
The result drops ASU’s record to 61-86-1, 25 games under .500. A third-place finish in the invitational would have put ASU’s record at 74-73-1, one game over .500.
Since the NCAA added regionals in 1989, ASU has qualified every time, but a school must have at least a .500 record to be eligible to qualify.
From there, 30 of the 81 schools in regionals advance to the NCAA tournament. ASU has missed the NCAA tournament only twice since 1963.
ASU could technically reach the postseason by automatically qualifying, but to do that, the Sun Devils would need to win the Pac-12 championship later this month in Corvallis, Ore.
With six Pac-12 teams ranked in the top 12, winning the conference tournament is unlikely.
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