Du Toit Loving Life In Arizona
Kimberley's Jared du Toit Is Loving Life In The Sun As An ASU Sun Devil - Image Courtesy Sun Devil Athletics
B.C. Amateur Champion Has Fit In Nicely With Sun Devils After Transferring From Idaho
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
A ride home in Phil Mickelson’s private jet, congratulatory tweets from the likes of Paul Casey and Hank Haney, and sunshine. Lots of sunshine. Yes, you could say Jared du Toit is enjoying his first year at Arizona State University. And it’s not over yet.
The 20-year-old B.C. Amateur champion from Kimberley is heading to Salt Lake City for this weekend’s Pac12 Championship tourney with his Sun Devils teammates. “It has been awesome,” du Toit said over the phone from Arizona.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better. When I transferred here I was a little unsure about what I was going to get. But everything that has happened has been best-case scenario for me. It truly has been a smooth transition and it’s been an awesome first year at Arizona State.”
Du Toit transferred to ASU after two successful years at the University of Idaho. It was a step up in class, but du Toit has not missed a beat. He ranks second on his team with a stroke average of 71.33 and has recorded three top-10 finishes.
Only teammate Jon Rahm has been better and he happens to be the world’s top-ranked amateur. “Jared has been a great addition,” said du Toit’s coach, Tim Mickelson. “He has played well, he is a great kid and is a lot of fun to have on the team. I could not have wished it to have gone this well.”
Mickelson cited du Toit’s consistency as one of his real strengths. “I think most people would agree you are not going to look at his swing and think of Tiger Woods or Adam Scott, but he is so consistent,” Mickelson said. “He knows what type of player he is and he knows his game. His consistency has been a huge benefit to us and obviously to him as well.”
Du Toit, who won last year’s B.C. Amateur Championship at Fairview Mountain in Oliver by seven shots, described his season this way: “I haven’t done anything too spectacular, but I certainly haven’t done anything that has hurt the team at all. I’d like to get my good a little better, but keep my bad as good as it is, if that makes sense.”
Du Toit said it did not take him long to realize he had made a great decision in choosing to transfer to Arizona State. He knew the weather would be a whole lot better than it was in Idaho, but there have been so many other positives. Take his first tournament with ASU last fall, for example.
The Sun Devils had travelled to Chicago for a tournament and there happened to be a PGA TOUR event going on in the Windy City at the same time.“Phil Mickelson is an ASU alum and of course is the coach’s (older) brother,” du Toit said. “We finished our tournament the same day as the PGA TOUR event ended and he flew us home on his private jet. I could go on just telling stories like that. It has been unreal.”
Du Toit shot what he called the round of his life back in January during a team qualifier at a course called Desert Forest. It’s regarded as perhaps the toughest course in Arizona. Du Toit shot a nine-under 63 that included two bogeys. It earned him congratulatory tweets from ASU alum and PGA TOUR regular Paul Casey as well as renowned instructor Hank Haney. “I think I broke the course record by three,” du Toit said.
“Bubba (Watson) was on the list before me or something like that. It was just unbelievable. I wasn’t expecting to get the reach-outs on social media from guys like Paul Casey and Hank Haney who sent me stuff on Twitter. That was really exciting for me.”
Although he has been forced to play in his considerable shadow, du Toit said having Rahm as a teammate this year has been both a blessing and motivator. Rahm heads into the Pac 12 Championship having recorded 10 straight top-10 finishes.
“He has done just about everything you can do in amateur golf,” du Toit said of Rahm, who is completing his final year at ASU. “He’s a really good friend of mine and I have learned a lot from him. There’s a reason that he is (No. 1) and it’s kind of cool to see what he can do and obviously try to emulate him and get to the level he is at, too.”
Mickelson thinks playing alongside Rahm has been good for du Toit. “He doesn’t mind that he is being overshadowed and it’s not a big deal,” Mickelson said. “He just goes about his business. The flip side of that is I think Jared knows that having a guy like Jon Rahm around can only help him get better because he goes to practice knowing that there are people that can contend with him or beat him and it makes him elevate his game, which was something that he was lacking at Idaho because he was the No. 1 guy by far.”
Following this weekend’s Pac 12 tourney, du Toit and the ninth-ranked Sun Devils will find out where they will be heading for NCAA regionals. After that, hopefully there will be a trip to the NCAA Championships, which go May 27-June 1 in Eugene, Ore.
A busy summer will follow for du Toit, a marketing major who is a member of Golf Canada’s national team. He is hoping to receive exemptions into two Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada events, likely in Kelowna and Saskatoon, and has a full summer schedule planned.
In the meantime, du Toit is hoping he and his ASU teammates can make the most of the month of May. “It is a big month for us,” he said. “It should be fun.” Just like the past year.