(Photo: Northwestern Athletics)
Arizona State women’s golf will try to pick up the pace at the Windy City Collegiate Classic after opening the season with a pair of top-5 finishes. Nine of the 14 teams competing are listed inside the Golf Channel Women’s Collegiate Golf Preseason Top 25, making it a difficult test for the maroon and gold.
The Sun Devils are competing in the event for the sixth time since 2015. Last year, the squad finished with a team score of even-par tying for tenth. Patience Rhodes was the highlight of that tournament grabbing a top-20 finish with a 4-under result.
Rhodes hasn’t had to be patient to start the season well. A top-six and top-five finish in her first two tournaments has her in the driver’s seat as one of the best sophomores in the country. Rhodes has 24 birdies in her first two starts in 2024.
Junior Paula Schulz-Hanssen is also off to a great start this year, finishing with scores of 1-under in the ANNIKA Intercollegiate and a 6-under at the Mason Rudolph Invitational, resulting in two top-20 finishes to start the season.
Momentum is key in golf, and that is what freshman Isla Mcdonald-O’Brien exactly has going into Chicago. To end off the Mason Rudolph Championship, she shot a 68 (-4) carding her best round in college so far. McDonald-O’Brien carded eight birdies which was the most by a Sun Devil this year.
Senior Grace Summerhays and junior Beth Coulter will look to bounce back after both finishing outside of the top-30 in the Mason Rudolph Invitational.
Last season, in her junior campaign, two of the times Summerhays finished outside the top-30 she then gunned two top-20 results right after, so she is no stranger to forgetting a few bad rounds.
The teams will play 36 holes on Monday followed by the final 18 on Tuesday. UCLA is the reigning champion of the event. The same due five players, Rhodes, Schulz-Hanssen, Mcdonald-O’Brien, Summerhays, and Coulter, will start for ASU as normal.
