(Photo Courtesy – Stryder Bigler)
This weekend, all eyes in the golf world are on the most prestigious event in the sport: The Masters. There’s already been plenty of buzz out of Augusta and by Sunday’s end, a green jacket will be given out and many lives will be changed.
And while millions are watching to see who walks away victorious at the 88th Master’s, there’s plenty of excitement in the golf world elsewhere, especially the desert.
17 of the best college programs in the country teed it up Friday and Saturday for the Thunderbird Collegiate at Papago Golf Club, Arizona State’s home course in Phoenix. The likes of USC, UCLA, Texas Tech, New Mexico and more power programs traveled to Arizona to take on ASU’s home course.
The first two rounds of the 54-hole tournament were played Saturday, and they went as many expected. Arizona State utilized its home course advantage to take a 13-stroke lead after day one. ASU junior Preston Summerhays led the individual field in his defense of his 2023 win at the Thunderbird.
Knowing the course like the back of their hands helped ASU players get off to a hot start, especially Summerhays.
“I’ve played a lot of tournaments here,” Summherhays said, “I played the junior Thunderbird here and it’s my third year playing this event so I have a lot of tournament reps on this course. I feel super comfortable and then I feel like my preparation this week was very good.”
Day one was dominant for ASU, but the Sun Devils took it to a whole different level Saturday. Led by Summerhays and graduate student Ryggs Johnston, the Sun Devils shot 15-under in the final round as a team and won the tournament by 28 strokes.
Playing at their home course certainly gave ASU an advantage, but Head Coach Matt Thurmond believed winning by 28 strokes had to do with more than just the fact that they were playing at Papago.
“We’ve never had a victory like that since I’ve been here. You win any tournament by 10 strokes and that’s a big one but 28 is a whole new thing, especially in such an elite field, a lot of the best teams in the country were here. We played awesome,” Thurmond said after the dominant performance.
For the players, the back-to-back Thunderbird win meant more than just a trophy.
“The last couple years we’ve talked about wanting our program to be that type of team that dominates and wins tournaments by a lot of shots,” Summerhays said.
The star had not only to be proud of how his team played, but himself too after winning the individual field.
Summerhays became the back-to-back Thunderbird Collegiate champion Saturday after an up-and-down round that ended with him going four under in the final eight holes. After giving up the lead with a double-bogey on hole 10, Summerhays dialed it right back in.
“At that point I just kind of had to let everything go. I just honestly stopped thinking and just let my body take over and got on a nice run there at the end,” he said after adding another piece of hardware to his collection.
The final individual leaderboard not only featured Summerhays, but also Ryggs Johnston who finished second overall, freshman Wenyi Ding who tied for third, sophomore Michael Mjaaseth who tied for fifth and junior Josele Ballester who tied for seventh.
ASU now looks to the postseason with the Pac-12 Championships starting in two weeks. This kind of win can have various effects on the team moving forward as they really get into their march for the National Championship.
Coach Thurmond doesn’t want his guys to get too satisfied after this weekend. “It’s easy to think that we’ve arrived or we’re better than we are,” he said, “we’re going to enjoy this one for a couple of days then but then go back to being as humble as can be, working really really hard and preparing in every way.”
Summerhays pointed out that this win at Papago, “gives (them) a lot of confidence” going into the Pac-12 Championships and beyond.
The Sun Devils are clicking at just the right time. With just a few events to go, they have proven that when they play their best golf, they can not only win, but dominate any event and take home whatever trophy is at stake.
