Winter Park, Fla. – The Global Golf Post has announced its All-Amateur team for 2016 and five Sun Devil golfers earned a spot – current student-athletes Jared du Toit, Linnea Strom, Monica Vaughn and Olivia Mehaffey and 2016 alum Jon Rahm.
The fourth annual All-Amateur men's and women's teams, including amateur, mid-amateur, and senior amateur categories, comes from Global Golf Post, the world's leading digital golf news magazine. Players from 29 countries made up the 2016 version with the Sun Devils' representatives accounting for five alone. – Ireland (Mehaffey), Canada (du Toit), Sweden (Strom), USA (Vaughn), and Spain (Rahm).
Mehaffey, the No. 4 amateur golfer in world standings, already has multiple accolades to her name as just a college freshman. She helped lead the 2016 Great Britain & Ireland team to the Curtis Cup victory and won the Irish Women's Open Championship and the Welsh Ladies Open Stroke Play Championship in 2016. Most recently, she earned a bronze medal with her home country of Ireland at the Women's World Amateur Championships in Mexico in September 2016.
As a Sun Devil, du Toit, a senior from Kimberley, British Columbia eight top-10 finishes in 1.5 seasons, including three thus far this season. Named Pacific Northwest Golf Association Player of the Year for 2015-16, he finished in the top-10 during summer 2016 at the RBC Canadian Open, his first-ever PGA Tour event. He was the first Canadian amateur to record a top-10 finish at the event since 1954 and earned low-amateur honors.
Strom won a Pac-12 championship as a freshman in 2016, setting the Pac-12 championship 54-hole record with a 11-under 205. She placed second in the 2015 Ladies British Open Amateur Championship, won the 2014 Spanish International Amateur Championship, and earned a gold medal in the 2013 and 2014 European Team championship as well as at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics. She also qualified for the NCAA championships a season ago and was named a WGCA First Team All-American.
Vaughn earned a spot on the 2016 Curtis Cup team, playing for the USA, and had six top-10 finishes in seven tournaments as a junior in 2015-16. She set a new career low round (65) last season, tied for the second-lowest round in ASU history, as she won the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, coming back from five strokes down. As a sophomore, Vaughn advanced to the NCAA championship, finishing fifth.
Rahm, a 2016 ASU graduate, earned the coveted Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year award for his senior campaign, an award that honors the top player in collegiate golf. He became just the seventh golfer in program history to earn back-to-back PING First Team All-American honors and became the first two-time recipient of the Ben Hogan Award. The top amateur golfer as a student-athlete now plays on the PGA Tour.
Both teams have a tournament win under their belt in fall 2016 – the Alister Mackenzie Invitational for the men and the Pac-12 Preview for the women – and look to continue building on early success in the spring.
ASU men's golf opens 2017 at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate (Feb. 2-4) in Kona, Hawai'i while the women kick off the year with a dual vs. Denver on Jan. 29 (8 am MT) at Superstition Mountain.
The fourth annual All-Amateur men's and women's teams, including amateur, mid-amateur, and senior amateur categories, comes from Global Golf Post, the world's leading digital golf news magazine. Players from 29 countries made up the 2016 version with the Sun Devils' representatives accounting for five alone. – Ireland (Mehaffey), Canada (du Toit), Sweden (Strom), USA (Vaughn), and Spain (Rahm).
Mehaffey, the No. 4 amateur golfer in world standings, already has multiple accolades to her name as just a college freshman. She helped lead the 2016 Great Britain & Ireland team to the Curtis Cup victory and won the Irish Women's Open Championship and the Welsh Ladies Open Stroke Play Championship in 2016. Most recently, she earned a bronze medal with her home country of Ireland at the Women's World Amateur Championships in Mexico in September 2016.
As a Sun Devil, du Toit, a senior from Kimberley, British Columbia eight top-10 finishes in 1.5 seasons, including three thus far this season. Named Pacific Northwest Golf Association Player of the Year for 2015-16, he finished in the top-10 during summer 2016 at the RBC Canadian Open, his first-ever PGA Tour event. He was the first Canadian amateur to record a top-10 finish at the event since 1954 and earned low-amateur honors.
Strom won a Pac-12 championship as a freshman in 2016, setting the Pac-12 championship 54-hole record with a 11-under 205. She placed second in the 2015 Ladies British Open Amateur Championship, won the 2014 Spanish International Amateur Championship, and earned a gold medal in the 2013 and 2014 European Team championship as well as at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics. She also qualified for the NCAA championships a season ago and was named a WGCA First Team All-American.
Vaughn earned a spot on the 2016 Curtis Cup team, playing for the USA, and had six top-10 finishes in seven tournaments as a junior in 2015-16. She set a new career low round (65) last season, tied for the second-lowest round in ASU history, as she won the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, coming back from five strokes down. As a sophomore, Vaughn advanced to the NCAA championship, finishing fifth.
Rahm, a 2016 ASU graduate, earned the coveted Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year award for his senior campaign, an award that honors the top player in collegiate golf. He became just the seventh golfer in program history to earn back-to-back PING First Team All-American honors and became the first two-time recipient of the Ben Hogan Award. The top amateur golfer as a student-athlete now plays on the PGA Tour.
Both teams have a tournament win under their belt in fall 2016 – the Alister Mackenzie Invitational for the men and the Pac-12 Preview for the women – and look to continue building on early success in the spring.
ASU men's golf opens 2017 at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate (Feb. 2-4) in Kona, Hawai'i while the women kick off the year with a dual vs. Denver on Jan. 29 (8 am MT) at Superstition Mountain.