Sophomore Mathias Schjoelberg hits a shot from the fairway during the ASU Thunderbird Invitational last April. (Photo by Sam Rosenbaum)The ASU men’s golf team will start its season in the Gopher Invitational hosted by Minnesota on Sept. 9 and 10.
The event should be a leading indicator to how the season unfolds for the Sun Devils.
ASU faces top competition to start the year in the 15-team invitational, including No. 3 California and No. 18 Kent State. Both finished in the top 10 of NCAAs last season.
With six newcomers this season, the lineup the Sun Devils brings to the invitational will look different than last year’s.
Freshman Max Rottluff from Germany headlines the new ASU starting lineup as he won ASU’s qualifying event for the invitational.
The two returners from last year’s starting lineup are sophomores Mathias Schjoelberg and Austin Quick, who both qualified.
“We’ve got a lot of guys playing at a very high level,” ASU head coach Tim Mickelson said.
Mickelson said he thinks Quick is back to his spring season form when he played the best golf of his career.
“He played pretty well at the Arizona Amateur (during the summer),” Mickelson said. “He failed to advance to the U.S. Amateur, but his game looks pretty solid. I feel like he left off from where he was last spring.”
Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu
