![[year first name lastname] grins after sinking a putt in the Thunderbird Invitational tournament on Saturday, April 4, 2015 at Karsten Golf Course in Tempe. (Ben Moffat/The State Press)](https://snworksceo.imgix.net/asp/bd792ee6-2aca-4b94-ac9e-17543174d0c0.sized-1000x1000.jpg?w=1000)
Two years ago, ASU men's golf was the surprise team. Now the Sun Devils are the ones with the pressure at the top.
Behind a starting lineup that should all be returning in 2015-16, ASU is ranked No. 6 in the country according to Golfweek and has to be considered one of the contenders for the national title, even though it hasn't won its past three invitationals after a five-for-six run in victories earlier this semester.
"I don’t want to say it’s an expectation to win because there’s 30 teams there," ASU coach Tim Mickelson said. "Any of the 30 can win and you always need a little luck to win but we have the physical ability, we have the talent, we have the depth to win so now we just have to go execute. If we make match play, then I like our chances."
Although it's a well-known cliché to "take things one game/tournament at a time," junior Jon Rahm said that's the approach ASU has to take or else the nerves could cost the Sun Devils shots.
The Sun Devils are going to need contributions from its full starting five to perform well in Florida, not just from Rahm, who won the Ben Hogan Award, at the top.
Junior Max Rottluff is now entrenched at the No. 2 spot in ASU's order after challenging Rahm for the top spot for most of the season. Rottluff has nine top-10 finishes, two tournament victories and two second-place finishes on the season.
"Even if we’re friends and we’re roommates, we hate losing against each other," Rahm said. "We’re really competitive in that sense and we fight against each other and that actually helped both of us to play better. I started playing better, he started playing better, and then we both started getting wins and that actually helped a lot."
Sophomore Ki Taek Lee has emerged from an individual role back into the starting lineup, and might be playing well enough to be No. 3 on the team. He has three top-20 finishes since April. In each of the past four invitationals, he's exceeded the spot on the team where he was slotted. At the ASU Thunderbird, he was tied for eighth overall after not even starting.
"Ki Taek’s a very physically gifted player," Mickelson said. "He played well in the fall of last year, his freshman year, and then he actually played pretty good this fall and then he went through about a two-month stretch where he lost his confidence but he worked very hard to get his confidence back. He’s back at the level we feel he can play at and he expects to play at too."
The NCAA championships run May 29-June 3. It begins with stroke play and then the field shrinks to eight teams, beginning the match play portion. The quarterfinals and semifinals are on June 2, with the championship happening the next day.
Reach the reporter at jmjanss1@asu.edu or follow @jjanssen11 on Twitter.
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