(photo courtesy – Ben Parris)
On Friday Oct. 20-22 Arizona State Women’s Golf will take to Palo Alto to participate in the annual Stanford Intercollegiate.
The Sun Devils will head to Stanford with over two weeks of rest, as their last tournament was the Windy City Invitational on Oct. 2-3.
ASU has played in three events thus far and have slated third, fourth, and 10th place finishes.
While the Sun Devils would have liked to have taken the top stop in an early tournament, the team is certainly off to an encouraging start to a season that had high expectations coming in.
In terms of individual standouts, sophomore Paula Schulz-Hanssen has the highest finish among ASU players, tying for fifth at the Mason Rudolph Invitational.
Senior Ashley Menne also posted an impressive sixth place finish at the McGuire Invitational.
Another thing that stands out when it comes to Arizona State’s start to the season is that the lineup has been very consistent.
Schulz-Hanssen, Menne, junior Grace Summerhays, redshirt freshman Patience Rhodes, and sophomore Beth Coulter have played in each of the first three tournaments, and junior Calynne Rosholt has played in two of them.
It’s clear that Head Coach Missy Farr-Kaye feels very confident in her top players going into Stanford and the spring season ahead.
The Stanford Intercollegiate will be ASU’s last tournament of the calendar year and it is one that is full of elite teams.
The Sun Devils have been playing high-level competition all year, but this weekend there will be 12 top-25 teams at Stanford, including ASU.
That list of highly-ranked opponents includes Pac-12 rivals such as top ranked Stanford, fourth ranked Oregon, seventh ranked UCLA, 12th ranked USC, 20th ranked Arizona, and 23rd ranked California.
Considering the western representation that will be featured this weekend, it would be extra sweet for the Sun Devils if they could cap off the fall portion of the season with a strong showing.
The tournament format will be a traditional three day, 18 hole per-day tournament.
However, out of the five golfers each team will field, only the four best scores from each team will be taken.
ASU’s lineup for the weekend will remain consistent, as Coah Farr-Kaye has slated Menne, Rhodes, Schulz-Hanssen, Rosholt, and Summerhays to participate this weekend.
The tournament will be held at Stanford University Golf Course, a Par 71 course that has been home to conference championships, national championships and major qualifiers.
The prestigious course began construction in 1929 and has twice been voted a top 100 course in America.
Certainly the Stanford Cardinal go into this tournament as the favorite considering their number one ranking and home course advantage, but Arizona State will be contending to pull off an upset in Palo Alto and bring the hardware home to Tempe.
