ASU men’s golf’s talent was on full display at the Amer Ari

(Photo: Courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)

TEMPE – No. 5 Arizona State men’s golf bounced back in a big way after its poor Copper Cup performance.

The Sun Devils traveled to Mauna Lani Golf Resort in Hawaii for the Amer Ari Invitational, hosted by the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

The tournament was a standard three-day, stroke-play collegiate golf format with a 20-team field. Each team was allowed to enter five members a day to compete, along with an independent who was playing for his own score.

The field consisted of eight other top-25-ranked teams in the most recent Golf Coaches Association of America poll, and three inside the top ten.

ASU’s lineup was littered with the usual suspects, senior Michael Mjaaseth, juniors Connor Williams and Fifa Laopakdee, along with sophomore Peer Wernicke, who served as the independent.

Two freshmen made the lineup this week, with Boston Bracken and newcomer for the spring semester, Raul Gomez from Spain, who made just his second start at this event.

The Sun Devils came out scorching hot from the very first tee. The team shot a score of 23-under-par on Day 1 and was led by their lone senior, Mjaaseth.

Mjaaseth converted 10 birdies to just one bogey for a 9-under-par round and tied for third with former Sun Devil, senior Luke Potter of Texas.

ASU dominated the par five holes in Round 1, cashing in 17 birdies and one eagle on four different holes between the six of them on the course. Specifically, hole 2 was the one to get for the Sun Devils, where they shot a combined 7-under-par in the round.

Round 2 was very much the same for the Sun Devils. Mjaaseth matched his 9-under-par round on Day 1 with another 9-under-par round, but bogey-free the second time.

The other main contributor in Round 2 was Laopakdee, who shot 6-under-par for a 66 in Round 2 with seven birdies and one bogey.

ASU had the second-best team score of the second round at 19-under-par and sat fourth overall between the two rounds at 42-under-par.

Round 3 was the “worst” of the three rounds for ASU, which still managed to shoot an impressive 16-under-par. The Sun Devils would wind up with a final team score of 58-under-par and a third-place finish.

While that was not good enough to keep with Auburn’s 77-under-par team score to win the team championship, Mjaaseth was still very much in the running to win the individual crown heading into the back nine.

Mjaaseth was 22-under-par heading to the tenth hole tee box, while Auburn tournament leading, and PGA Tour-bound Jackson Koivun was sitting 23-under after breaking Tiger Woods NCAA 36-hole scoring record through the first two days.

Mjaaseth immediately struck first by making a birdie on hole 10 and evened up the scoring. Both players parred holes 11 and 12 before Koivun jumped back out in front after he birdied hole 13.

Both parred 14, and then both birdied 15 to keep Koivun just up one at the top of the leaderboard.

The 16th hole was where things began to take a turn for the worse for Mjaaseth as he double-bogeyed the hole with a six. Luckily for him, Koivun also made bogey on the tough par four, meaning Mjaaseth would be down to two strokes with two holes to play.

Hole 17 was parred out by both, which essentially put the nail in the coffin for Mjaaseth, but hole 18 was where things went from bad to worse for him as he triple-bogeyed the final hole.

Shooting five-over on his last three holes left Mjaaseth with a final score of 19-under par (63-63-71) and third on the leaderboard after Auburn junior Cayden Pope shot a final round of 9-under-par to backdoor into second place.

As for the rest of the Sun Devils, Williams finished with the next lowest score, shooting 14-under-par (66-70-66) and finishing tied 14th.

The Freshman duo was not far behind the two veterans. Gomez came in next, shooting 11-under-par (68-70-67) and finished tied 31st in his first true stroke-play event for ASU, while Bracken shot 10-under-par (68-70-68) and landed tied 33rd on the leaderboard.

Bringing it up the rear for the Sun Devils were Wernicke and Laopakdee, who placed tied 48th and tied 59th, respectively. Wernicke shot 7-under-par (69-75-65) after a phenomenal final round for his individual score, and Laopakdee shot 6-under-par (68-66-76) after a poor final round.

The men’s golf team will have an almost month-long wait before they tee it up again at the Cabo Collegiate at the Twin Dolphin Club from Mar. 1-3.