Sept. 21, 1999
OPELIKA, Ala. -- The Arizona State men's golf team, ranked second in the GOLFWEEK preseason poll, finished third at Ping/GOLFWEEK NCAA Preview held at the Lake Course/Grand National in Opelika, Ala., Sophomore Matt Jones carded a 5-under 211 (70-74-67) to finish fourth and the 67 matched the low round of the tournament and is a career-best.
ASU finished at 863 (289-292-282), 1-under-par. Northwestern won the tournament with a 16-under 848 (285-281-282), while Clemson finished second (279-284-293) at 8-under 856.
ASU was without two-time defending Pac-10 champion Paul Casey, who did not play after returning from the Walker Cup last week. The ASU lineup included Jones, junior Jin Park (72-74-70=216/even), 1999 second-team All-American Jeff Quinney (72-71-80=223/+7), redshirt freshman Brady Stockton (75-73-73=221/+5) and senior Jonas Runnquist (75-76-72=223/+7).
The Preview was held at the Grand National (Lake Course) in Opelika, Ala., which is a par-72, 6985-yard course where the 2000 NCAA Championships will be held May 31-June 3. Auburn is the host school.
Results are available on the internet at: www.auburn.edu:80/athletics/press/index.html. ASU finished third in last year's preview in Minnesota as Jeff Quinney finished fourth.
In addition to top-ranked Clemson and ASU, also in the field were (GOLFWEEK preseason rankings): No. 3 Oklahoma State, No. 4 UNLV, No. 5 Georgia Tech, No. 6 Georgia, No. 8 Houston, No. 9 South Carolina, No. 10 Texas, No. 11 Florida, No. 12 North Carolina, No. 14 Northwestern, No. 15 Minnesota, No. 19 New Mexico, No. 21 UCLA, No. 22 Auburn, No. 25 East Tennessee State and Nebraska.
ASU is led by eighth-year head coach Randy Lein, who has won the Pac-10 Coach of the Year award six times in his career, including four times at Arizona State (1993, 1995, 1996 and 1999) and twice at USC (1980, 1986). He guided ASU to a conference record fifth straight league title in 1999. He has led ASU to 26 tournament victories in his eighth season. The Sun Devils are the only team to notch a top-10 finish at the NCAAs in each of the past 12 seasons and also has an unmatched current string of five NCAA top five finishes, including the national title in 1996.
Team Scoring 1. Northwestern 285-281-282=848 (-16) 2. Clemson 279-284-293=856 (-8) 3. Arizona State 289-292-282=863 (-1) 4. Georgia Tech 290-291-283=864 (E)
Individual Scoring 1-Luke Donald (Northwestern)68-73-67=208 (-8) 2-Jess Daley (Northwestern) 71-69-69=209 (-7) 3-Lucas Glover (Clemson) 71-67-72=210 (-6) 4-Matt Jones (ASU) 70-74-67=211 (-5)
ASU: Jin Park (ASU/T-14) 72-74-70=216 (E), Brady Stockton (ASU/T-34) 75-73-73=221 (+5), Jeff Quinney (ASU/T-44) 72-71-80=223 (+7), Jonas Runnquist (ASU/T-44) 75-76-72=223 (+7)