PHOENIX – Following a three-month hiatus, ASU men’s golf is back in action.

The Sun Devils ended last season on a high note with a win in the final Pac-12 Championship, and they’ve put together a solid Big 12 season debut so far.

The Amer Ari Invitational in Hawaii a few weeks ago was the team’s first taste of tournament play since October, and ASU had to compete without 2024 U.S. Amateur Champion and three-time All-American Senior Josele Ballester, who received an exemption into the Phoenix Open.

ASU still managed to place eighth out of the 20 teams competing, largely thanks to senior Preston Summerhays who tied for 13th, as well as freshman Peer Wernicke and junior Michael Mjaaseth, who each tied for 16th.

At the moment, two Sun Devil seniors sit inside the top-10 World Amateur Golf Rankings, Ballester (3) and Summerhays (8).

Next up ahead of a packed March schedule is the Cabo Collegiate, which runs from Sunday through Tuesday and brings back fond memories from last year. The tournament will feature a competitive field of 14 teams, including top programs like Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt.

The Sun Devils took this tournament by nine strokes last time around, led by Summerhays, who finished third after shooting an 8-under-205.

ASU coach Matt Thurmond would like nothing more than another victory in Mexico, but that doesn’t mean the program can’t also enjoy a little vacation time.

“I reminded the guys this week like, ‘Look, we’re in Cabo man, we’re staying on the beach, we’re eating tacos every meal,’” Thurmond said Thursday via Zoom. “We are so lucky just to be there, and we’ve got a lot of good players, so if we just do our thing, we’re going to be in contention.”

Summerhays feels confident about ASU’s chances in Cabo, and part of that comes from the familiar environment.

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“It’s nice going into a tournament that you’ve had success at before, especially as a team,” Summerhays said via Zoom. “Knowing that we play really well on that course gives us a little bit more confidence, especially with desert golf where most teams aren’t used to playing.”

At first glance, the Sun Devils roster appeared to be entering a strict rebuilding phase this season after the departures of 2024 Pac-12 Men’s Golfer and Freshman of the Year Wenyi Ding, sophomore Luke Potter and five-year starter Ryggs Johnston. However, the team has stepped up at the right times to surpass Thurmond’s expectations.

“When we started the season, I was honestly kind of worried, but we’ve just been so much better than I expected,” Thurmond said. “Jose’s played amazing, Preston’s getting better all the time, Michael Mjaaseth has played better than he did last year, and I’m most excited right now about Peer Wernicke. He’s probably been one of the best two or three freshmen in the country.”

Freshman talent has been in abundance recently for ASU, which boasted the final three Pac-12 Freshman of the Year winners – Ding, Mjaaseth and Summerhays. Though the Pac-12 is no more, Thurmond hopes that the streak will carry on in the Big 12 this season with Wernicke.

Golf might be an individual sport, but at the collegiate level, championships and titles are won as a team. While Thurmond is tasked with coaching each player differently, he knows that the team element of the sport is crucial to the program’s success.

“It’s a small group, so we’re all around one table for all the meals,” Thurmond said. “I mean every day they sit and have lunch together, they practice together, they know each other like brothers. Even though scoring-wise you don’t pass anybody a ball, you are heavily influenced by the people around you.”

Just like any other sport, there’s a certain momentum in golf that can jump from player to player, assuming all goes right. Summerhays knows this well.

“When you’re out on the course and you see your teammates start to go on stretches, it kind of frees you up a little bit to go do that same thing,” Summerhays said.

Along with their quality performance so far, the Sun Devils have felt the pressure since joining the Big 12. New conference rivals are well aware of what ASU can do on the course, and this year’s group knows it.

Summerhays feels the eyes on the team at all times, but in his mind it’s just business as usual.

“I think there’s a pretty big target on our back,” Summerhays said. “We’re a high-ranked team, and we’re coming into a new conference where they don’t want the new guys to come in and show them up, but we’ll stick to our process and we’re going to go out there and give it our best shot.”