ASU men’s golfer Wenyi Ding pieced together arguably the best freshman season in Sun Devil Athletics history, and he has continued that momentum on a much larger stage.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!This past weekend, Ding was the champion of the 118th Southern Amateur at Idle Hour Country Club in Kentucky with a 18-under 262 (66-69-63-64). In doing so, he became the first Chinese amateur golfer to be crowned as the competition’s champion.
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Wenyi Ding ????️ has won the 118th Southern Amateur Championship by three shots after rounds of 66-69-63-64 (-18)‼️
????: https://t.co/bCmqXZ2dxg@TheSunDevils /// @sgagolf pic.twitter.com/0XxZseXvjU
— Sun Devil Men's Golf (@sundevilmgolf) July 20, 2024
This tournament intitally began in 1902 at the Nashville Golf & Country Club in Nashville, TN when Louisiana native A.F. Schwartz was crowned the first champion of the inaugral event. Starting out as a match play, the Southern Amateur changed to stroke play in 1964.
Since arriving from overseas, it has been a wild year or so for Ding who joined the Sun Devils last season and this is yet another monumental accomplishment in his career.
During his first year of collegiate golf, Ding was a PING All-American, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and the conference’s Player of the Year for ASU. He is just the fifth ASU golfer to be a first-team All-American in the last 17 seasons, joining the likes of Preston Summerhays (2023), Chun An Yu (2019), Jon Rahm (2015 and 2016) and Max Rotluff (2015). Not only that, but Ding is the first freshman in the program to earn first-team honors since Alejandro Canizares did it back in 2003.
As for Arizona State as a whole, the men’s golf program won the Cypress Point Classic match play event in the fall and both the Cabo Collegiate and Thunderbird Collegiate this spring before winning its last Pac-12 title as a program. This upcoming season, men’s golf will be entering the Big 12.
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Reporter Alec Cipollini covers ASU Athletics, Phoenix Mercury and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on his X account, @AlecCipollini
