Sophomore Mathias Schjoelberg watches his ball land after hitting from the fairway during the ASU Thunderbird Invitational last April. (Photo by Sam Rosenbaum)The ASU men’s golf team hoped for a better start to the season.
With three new players in the starting lineup, optimism permeated in the preseason for the Sun Devils.
But that did not come to fruition in the season opener, as ASU finished ninth out of 15 schools at the Gopher Invitational in Wayzata, Minn.
“It’s certainly not the start I was expecting or hoping for,” coach Tim Mickelson said. “But I know that this team is much improved from last year’s team and I know we’re going to see that sometime this fall.”
The field ASU squared off against was fairly strong. Five teams ranked in the top 25 of the GCAA Coaches’ Poll competed. All five ranked schools finished ahead of ASU.
The Sun Devils shot a plus-56 920 during the two-day, three-round invitational. They edged out Iowa and Memphis by two strokes each.
Sophomore Mathias Schjoelberg led the Sun Devils at plus-nine on the par-72 course, including a one-over 73 in the first round. Schjoelberg finished 17th individually.
“The only person that played decent-to-good was Mathias,” Mickelson said. “Everybody else certainly underachieved quite a bit and we don’t want to make that a thing of being an underachieving team. That’s certainly what happened at this event.”
Junior Spencer Lawson was ASU’s second-highest finisher at plus-14 and tied for 32nd overall. Lawson was the most consistent Sun Devil, shooting in the range of 75 to 78 in all three rounds.
Lawson, sophomore Austin Quick and freshman Jon Rahm each carded double-bogeys on one of their last two holes of the invitational, costing the Sun Devils a position on the leaderboard.
Quick, coming off an impressive freshman campaign, was the biggest disappointment for ASU. Quick shot plus-28 and was 21-over in the first two rounds.
Rahm bounced back from a nine-over opening round to score a one-over second round. Rahm placed 41st with a score of plus-16.
Freshman Max Rotluff finished 20-over in his ASU debut. Rotluff played well in qualifying for the invitational and was competing as the No. 2 golfer behind Schjoelberg.
Notes
- The teams played a doubleheader on Sept. 9. The reason why doubleheaders are played is because the NCAA limits the amount of days golfers can compete in a season.
- In the third and final round Sept. 10, 11 of the 15 schools had their worst performances. Mickelson said swirly winds caused the high scores during the final round.
- Mickelson also said the course was difficult. “There were probably four or five water hazards out on the course,” Mickelson said. “There’s a lot of difficult tee shots that if you don’t hit the fairway, you’re in trouble.”
- Penn State was disqualified after two of their players were disqualified during the second round. In rounds one and three, Penn State was one stroke behind ASU.
Reach the reporter at justin.janssen@asu.edu
