ASU men's golf surged on Tuesday to a second-place finish at the Ailster Mackenzie Invite, finishing -33 as a team in Fairfax, California.
The team lost to host California, which finished -42 in three rounds of golf. The Sun Devils topped San Diego State, Michigan and San Jose State among others.
The Sun Devils for the first two rounds went up against Cal, Oregon State and San Diego State who all brought their best in the first round, either tying the Sun Devils or having a lower score than them.
The team went with seniors Alberto Sanchez, Jon Rahm, Max Rottluff, juniors Jared Du-Toit and Nicolo Galletti and found success early on in the tournament, hitting a solid -7 in the first round. Three of their player were able to get into below par (Rahm, Rottluff and Du-Toit) while Galletti (+3) and Sanchez (+4) weren't able to find their groove as the others did.
Although the Sun Devils were in the middle of the scoreboard in a tie for ninth place with San Diego State, Colorado and Minnesota, the team was still in a good spot to take a jump into the top five.
ASU exploded in the second round of the tournament, hitting an impressive -15, which was the third lowest team score in the tournament, behind round one's Cal -16 and Pepperdine -17.
The team was in fourth place now with the score of -22 and the individual Sun Devils were improved in the second round as well, with all of them hitting in the negatives.
Rahm was tied for the best individual score of the tournament (-8) with Cal's sophomore Sebastian Crampton. Although Galletti and Sanchez had the highest scores again, they each stood in the negatives with -1 a piece.
The Sun Devils were in a great spot to knock down Cal from the top of the leaderboard, being only eight shots below them.
In the third round ASU hit -11 but didn't get the breaks they needed, as Cal ended its final round -12.
It wasn't all bad for ASU though, the team did jump from fourth to second place and the team was once again either below or on par for the second round in a row.
To top it off, Rahm tied for second place with Pepperdine senior Frederick Wedel, with the two hitting -17 and each only one shot away from first place San Jose State senior Cody Blick.
The Sun Devils will compete Sunday, Oct. 18 through Tuesday, Oct. 20 at the Tavistock Invitational in Isleworth, Florida.
Reach the reporter at osoussi@asu.edu or follow @omarksoussi on Twitter.
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