Early spring struggles continue for ASU women’s golf team

(Photo: Courtesy of Sun Devil Athletics)

Last week, No. 18 Arizona State women’s golf tee’d it up at the Therese Hession Regional Challenge and had a poor outing, finishing 11th in a 16-team field and shooting a team score of 25-over-par. Unfortunately, the struggle bus was once again the name of the game for ASU, falling flat at the tee box for a second straight week.

The Sun Devils traveled to Tucson Country Club on Monday and Tuesday for the Arizona Thunderbird Intercollegiate, where they battled to a seventh-place finish and a final score of 29-over-par in a surprisingly weak field. Outside of No. 1 Stanford, the Sun Devils were the next highest-ranked team in the field

Very similar to the Amer Ari Invitational the men’s team participated in earlier in February, the tournament was a standard three-round, stroke-play collegiate golf format with a 15-team field; the only difference is that this tournament took place over the course of only two days instead of three.

Each team was allowed to enter five members per day to compete, along with an independent player competing for her own score.

All six of the Sun Devils available players made starts, headlined by seniors Beth Coulter and Paula Schulz-Hanssen, along with sophomore Isla McDonald-O’Brien. Not available was star junior Patience Rhodes.

Rhodes suffered a leg injury over the team’s winter break that will more than likely keep her out until April, according to a release from Sun Devil Athletics. The team will hope she can be back not just down the stretch for the Sun Devils, but also to appear in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

Attempting to fill her absence alongside Coulter, Schulz-Hanssen and McDonald-O’Brien was the three-headed monster of freshman Pimpisa Rubrong, who just arrived this semester, Kate Dillon, and Johanna Axelsen, who competed as this individual at this event.

ASU immediately stumbled out of the gate in round one, shooting what would be its worst round of the tournament at 12-over-par.

The Sun Devils carded four double-bogeys on the round and a costly quadruple-bogey from McDonald-O’Brien on the par four, fifteenth hole.

No one played great for the Sun Devils outside of Coulter, who signed for a 1-under-par round with three birdies and two bogeys.

The Sun Devils headed into round two looking to bounce back and still sat tied in fourth place despite the subpar round, but it was still the same day for the Sun Devils, and they still had much of the same problems.

ASU’s team score for round two came in at an almost identical 11-over-par compared to the 12-over-par they posted earlier in the day. As a team, they made a combined 34 bogey-or-higher scores to only 18 birdies. There were multiple holes in the round where half the team made bogeys or worse.

Once again, however, on a more positive note, McDonald-O’Brien had a bounce-back performance, shooting 1-under-par in an up-and-down round that saw her make seven birdies.

Round three was the Sun Devils best round based on the team score, where they carded a 6-over-par. McDonald-O’Brien answered the call again, shooting even-par alongside Dillon, who easily had her best round of the event at even-par.

The Sun Devils final team score of 29-over-par was 45 strokes back of No. 1 Stanford’s eventual winning score of 16-under-par, which was the only team to sniff even-par, let alone under-par.

To round out the individual performances, McDonald-O’Brien led the way for the Sun Devils, posting a 5-over-par (78-71-72) final score that saw her finish tied 18th, but she was closely followed by Coulter, who shot 6-over-par (71-77-74) and found herself tied 21st on the leaderboard.

Next up were two of the freshmen in Dillon and Axelsen, who both shot 10-over-par (76-78-72) and (72-77-77), and tied for 27th place.

The two back-end scores for the Sun Devils were Schulz-Hanssen, shooting a 12-over-par (75-77-76) and finishing tied 32nd, paired with Rubrong carding 15-over-par (79-74-78) and tied 42nd place.

Head coach Missy Farr-Kaye and her team look to finally put their woes behind them when they tee off next at the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate from Mar. 2-4.