ASU Golf: Top-seeded Sun Devils’ season ends after missing cut at Rancho Santa Fe Regionals

ASU became only the fifth program to fail to reach the NCAA Championships after earning no.1 seed

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. — The hottest team in college golf saw its season come to a close early.

Having won three of their last four regular season tournaments, including the Cabo Collegiate, the Thunderbird Collegiate and the last-ever Pac-12 Championship, which was the program’s first since 2008, Arizona State men’s golf seemed poised for its fourth consecutive NCAA Championship appearance.

ASU climbed to its season-best third nationally, according to Clippd golf rankings. It also earned the No.1 seed in the Rancho Santa Fe Regionals hosted at The Farms Golf Club.

And that’s where the season abruptly ended. ASU became the fifth No. 1-seed to fail to advance past regionals after placing sixth with a 15-over 855. It is the first time since 2014 that the Sun Devil program failed to advance past regionals.hat the Sun Devil program failed to advance past regionals.

ASU men’s golf coach Matt Thurmond gave a philosophical answer to a sober realitysober reality.

“I’ve coached long enough to know that there’s a certain psychology of a competitor,” Thurmond said. “I can talk about how tough the regional is going to be, and I do, but at the same time we won by a lot the last two years, and our actual experience is, ‘Is it really going to be that tough?’ And we’ve had a long run of really good success at the end of the year.”

“There’s just a certain psychology that comes after you’ve been broken, and it’s different than the psychology that you have after you win,” he said. “Too much winning is often the worst thing for somebody. It’s not great for your character, your concentration, your humility, your focus on the things that most matter, and it’s human nature; it’s not like any team gets to avoid this.”

“It’s a challenge that every coach and every player and every human has, trying to keep your edge when you’re thriving. It’s not easy.”

Thurmond’s team has always played its best ball this time of the year, but that’s the beauty of sports. Freshman phenomenon Wenyi Ding and senior Preston Summerhays, both of whom have paced the team this season, shot T-42 and T-50, respectively. Senior Ryggs Johnston, who played his last round as a collegiate golfer, led the team with a 1-over 211, which was T-9. This was Johnston’s fourth consecutive top-10 finish. Josele Ballester and Connor Williams each placed T-13 at 3-over 213.

Oklahoma punch its ticket to the NCAA Championships with a first-place finish at 3-under. California, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and North Florida will all advance as well.

With ASU no longer hosting the regional qualifier (ASU hosted at Grayhawk Golf Club 2021-2023), it seemed that the pressure of capturing gold while at home was lifted. However, golf is the sport that most resembles life, and in that aspect, Thurmond said its a hard pill to swallow, but that’s what makes the game so great. Perhaps any other three days, the Sun Devils would have advanced, but the Pac-12 Coach of the Year and his highly-regarded squad are facing the off season.

“And the way sports work and golf works, is you don’t get it every time. This was a week where we we didn’t get the job done,” Thurmond said in an Instagram post. “The college golf regionals are tough. They’ve always been tough. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done all year, you have to be great for three days. And every year there’s teams that maybe could have or should have, but don’t advance. And there’s amazing stories of teams that maybe shouldn’t have, but did because for those three days, they were awesome.

And so we end our season a little bit early. We’re devastated, of course, but we use this to get better. The sun came up today, and there’s still great days ahead.”