The Cougar men’s golf team begins play in the desert at the ASU Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe, Arizona today.

The Cougars are coming in to this tournament having performed well at The Goodwin last weekend. Junior Bhurinat Songpaiboon carded a 1-over (211) as the team placed 10th in the 24-team field. Songpaiboon’s 33rd-place finish was his best of the season.

Head Coach Garrett Clegg hopes that his team can put together its most complete tournament of the season.

“We’ve had good rounds here and there, but it’s time to put a full tournament together as a team,” Clegg said.

WSU will compete against 13 other schools over the next two days at Arizona State’s Karsten Golf Course. They will complete the first 36 holes today, and finish the final 18 tomorrow. The links-style course will play at par 70 with a 6,971-yard track.

“The course is nice. It fits my eye pretty good, it’s not too demanding off the tee,” senior Charlie Mroz said. “You still have to hit consistent irons, and the greens are definitely tricky, so it’s not a cakewalk.”

Mroz has had success on Karsten before, shooting a team-low 67 in the second round of last year’s ASU Thunderbird Invitational. He finished 17th overall, and that experience has better prepared him for this weekend.

“It definitely helps my confidence a lot,” Mroz said. “I’m going back to a course that I’m already comfortable on and I know I can shoot good scores on, so that’s definitely an advantage.”

Mroz won’t be the only one of his teammates who has shot well at Karsten. Redshirt senior Sang Lee will be playing the course for the third time when he tees off this morning. Senior Michael Anderson, an Arizona native, also played at last year’s ASU Thunderbird Invitational.

Although there will be 13 other teams competing, Lee believes that worrying about how other teams are scoring is usually just a waste of energy. It also distracts from what his goal as a player is.

“When you’re playing golf, you have to go in with the mindset that you’re trying to play the golf course and beat the golf course,” Lee said. “It’s a sport where you can’t affect what the other players do, so you can’t worry about that.”

While previous experience on the course is a plus, the team spent yesterday morning practicing on the Karsten course. By studying the greens and observing how much they’re breaking, WSU spent a lot of time figuring out how the short game will work for them on this course.

Lee agrees that practicing putts and chips is the most important part, and the practice experience combined with multiple players having already played the course before will be key for the Cougars, according to Lee.

“You know what to expect, you’re a little bit more comfortable,” he said.

The WSU players who will compete this weekend are Mroz, Lee, Anderson, Songpaiboon, and freshman Derek Bayley.