The ASU women’s golf team is playing host this weekend to a field that includes every top-five team in the nation.
No. 1 USC, No. 2 Washington, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 South Carolina and No. 5 Duke will all be traveling to Tempe for the 2015 PING/ASU Invitational this weekend.
Those teams are just the top of an extremely difficult field in the tournament that also includes No. 7 Arkansas and No. 8 Arizona. This is far and away the most difficult field the No. 25 Sun Devils has seen this season. ASU has not won its home tournament since 2007 when current LPGA player Anna Nordqvist set the individual-low record shooting a 10-under 206 over three rounds.
The Sun Devils are coming off of their third top-five finish of the season at the SDSU Farms Invitational last month.
The lineups for the team’s home event are not changed from their most recent events. Sophomore Monica Vaughn gets the first spot in the lineup again as she continues to lead the team in stroke average with a 72.72 average through six events. Vaughn had her best performance at the Clover Cup last month, where her season best 5-under 211 helping her team to their only tournament win of the season.
Senior Noemi Jimenez remains in the second spot and will be looking for her fifth top-10 finish this season. In what will be her last PING/ASU Invitational she will be looking for her first win. Jimenez placed second in the event last year behind Duke’s Celine Boutier.
Freshman Sophia Zeeb will be in the third spot with her best finish of the season coming at the Clover Cup with a 9-over 225 for 13th place. Fellow freshman Roberta Liti will be following her in the lineup, and she will also be looking to improve on her season best performance at the Clover Cup where she finished 18th with a 12-over 228.
Rounding out the lineup is freshman Ashleigh Greenham who has only played in three tournaments in her first year as a Sun Devil but her best finish was also in the Clover Cup finishing 29th with a 14-over 230.
The Sun Devils will also have two golfers playing as individuals this weekend, senior Emilie Alonso and freshman Saki Iida.
Alonso will be playing in her third PING/ASU Invitational after missing the event her freshman year, she finished with a 7-over 223 at last year’s event. Iida started her Sun Devil career relatively strong at the Stanford Intercollegiate in October including shooting two 76 rounds finishing 9-over 232 but has regressed in each of her last two events so she will be looking to improve at the home tournament.
This is a tough spot for the Sun Devils which is not usually what you would say going into the home event. This is an extremely talented field the team is matching up with, and it is going to need every drop of momentum it can get as they prepare for the Pac-12 Championships later this month.
The PING/ASU Invitational starts this Friday at 8 a.m. at Karsten Golf Course in Tempe.
Reach the reporter at wslane@asu.edu or follow @bill_slane on Twitter.
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