Devil Distancing: Hitting the course with Jared du Toit

Jared du Toit transferred into Arizona State after a successful two years spent at the University of Idaho sporting a resumé as one of the best Canadian amateur golfers of recent time.

He made an immediate impact for the Sun Devils in his junior year, where he was able to study teammates like future world No. 1 Jon Rahm.

After Rahm graduated, du Toit was named to the top spot in the lineup after a summer spent electrifying his home gallery while contending for a PGA Tour win at the 2016 RBC Canadian Open. He highlighted his senior season with a win in the 2017 Prestige at PGA West.

Today, du Toit plays golf professionally all over the world, with appearances on several different tours in recent years. He recently took some time to speak with House of Sparky about his ASU career in another edition of our Devil Distancing series.

What was your favorite memory as a Sun Devil?

It was probably my first tournament at ASU. Our coach Tim Mickelson says, ‘Hey guys, if we win this tournament, Phil says he’ll fly us home on his jet.’ And we kind of choked it away because we were pretty nervous about that.

But we were driving to what we thought was the airport and we drove right past the turnoff all the way to the private jet place and Phil flew us home. So I think that was probably my favorite one. It’s definitely the story I tell the most about ASU and ASU golf.

What does a typical day in your life look like today?

Today I woke up, about seven-ish, and went to the ASU facility. I usually go between ASU or this course where I’m a member up in Scottsdale called Silver Leaf. I go practice for a couple hours, if I get to play, great. If not, that’s ok.

Then I try to keep the body good, just through different workouts. I’m also a big advocate of yoga so I do yoga three to four times a week.

If you could have back one moment from your ASU career, what would it be?

National championship my junior year. We were a really good team. Obviously, Jon Rahm was on the team. We had a really solid team. We were expected to make it into match play, we were right on the fringe, and we just came out flat the final day.

I think that round, if we could have just been a couple shots better, we could have been a couple of rounds away from a national championship.

Is there a player or a coach from your time at ASU that had a major impact on your life?

That’s a tough one. There were so many people that were super involved in my development, and not just for golf. I had Tim Mickelson my junior year, he did a ton for me. I had Matt Thurmond for my senior year. I could say a lot of the same things about him as well.

Those two guys were huge in my success. Coaching aside, I think Jon Rahm has been really good to me.

Obviously as a friend, but financially I don’t have to open my wallet too much when I’m around a player like him, you know? I would say it’s almost a toss-up between those three guys.

Is there a Sun Devil you didn’t play with that you enjoy watching?

I would say Chun An Yu is very special. He’s a stud. He hits it as good as anyone I’ve seen, and he’s got many of the same intangibles as Rahm and some of the elites in the game.

When he came in, he was already a pretty highly-ranked amateur. He had a lot of the things that you can’t just teach. If you got a putt on 18, he’s one of the guys you want hitting it. He was very raw when he came in.

You could see he had all those things, but he probably needed two or three years in college to kind of straighten everything out and get even more out of his game, and I think he’s done that. That’s why he is where he is.

More from the Devil Distancing Series:

Jackie Vasquez-Lapan

Brett Wallace

Jazmarie Mader

Morgan Howe

Madison Kerley

Sarah Quintero