ASU men's golf has a roster of players hailing from seven different countries other than the U.S., all of whom have had their own individual successes in tournaments across the globe.
Golf is far and away the universal language amongst this globally diverse squad, but the way they found ASU, or the way ASU found them, tells their full story.
"Wherever I go in the world, there's people that know about ASU and really want to be here," said coach Matt Thurmond, a 2024 Golf Coaches Association of America Hall of Fame inductee. "It's pretty cool."
For freshman Oscar Couilleau, from Plaisir, France, he recalls the feeling he had the first time seeing his head coach.
"The first time I saw coach Thurm was 4 years ago," said Couilleau. "During the tournament in Slovakia, I saw the fork and the ASU shirt; it was like, 'Oh, he's there, so we have to play well.'"
A recruitment lineage spanning four years may be what it takes to become a Sun Devil golfer, but Thurmond emphasized the importance of his players' character.
"I've always felt like it doesn't matter what religion, what skin color, what background nationality you have," Thurmond said. "We've always recruited really high-class, high-character people that just have a great passion for golf and want to play at the highest level. They have that in common."
It's this commonality that seems to bring them all together.
"They show up only basically knowing the guys on the team," Thurmond said. "They rely on that team culture, maybe a little bit more than the locals that can go home every weekend."
For South African sophomore Bryan Newman, having his team around him helped ease the transition into life in the U.S.
"Arriving and having some automatic friends really helps," Newman said. "It would be quite lonely without my teammates."
It's these "automatic friends" that have made the transition to life as a golfer at Arizona State seamless.
Only two seniors occupy the roster. The first is Fifa Laopakdee, who won the 2025 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in dramatic fashion to qualify for the Masters in 2026 and is poised to have a big year for the Sun Devils. The other senior is Connor Williams, who has been named team captain, and spoke on how he and Laopakdee share dual leadership.
"We were roommates our freshman year, so we've been through it all together and being the only two seniors, we're the ones being looked up to in a way on the team," Williams said. "I rely on him a lot; he relies on me a lot. Definitely a partnership, for sure."
In a preseason ranking, the Golf Channel ranked Arizona State as the No. 4 NCAA men's golf team.
The Sun Devils have big expectations coming into this year, but so does Williams, for himself and his teammates.
"Obviously the goal is to win a national championship," Williams said. "Last year was pretty disappointing the way we ended. We had a great team and we added some really good guys coming in. We have pretty high expectations for everyone."
Williams made it clear what goals this team has.
"This year our whole thing is going out there to win each and every tournament doing everything we can to do that," Williams said. "We're not really going out to just have a good time. We're very competitive and we want to win and we want to win by a lot."
As diverse as this roster is, the shared focus on winning couldn't be clearer. With the obvious goal of a national championship, Thurmond at the helm, and leaders Williams and Laopakdee looking to end their college golf careers on a high note, the Sun Devils are primed for a successful season.
Edited by Alex Swift, Alan Deutschendorf III and Sophia Keeling.
Reach the reporter at jsmart54@asu.edu and follow @JaggerMartinez3 on X.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Jagger Martinez is a Sports Reporter at The State Press. He is a Film and Media Studies major and this is his first semester with The State Press.
