DANIELLE MALOTT/Arizona Daily Wildcat Wildcat Chris Nallen sizes up a putt during Arizona's National Invitational Tournament win earlier this month. Nallen leads UA back into action this weekend at the Thunderbird Invitational in Tempe.

The Arizona men's golf team, one of the hottest teams in the country, will head to Tempe for the Thunderbird Invitational today ÷ but without the key ingredient to its spring success.

The Wildcats have won four out of the five tournaments this spring, including the National Invitational Tournament they hosted last week.

With Ricky Barnes, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, in Augusta competing in the Masters this week, UA will need outstanding performances from all five players to make the streak five of six.

"(Winning four out of first five tournaments) has been really nice, but playing at ASU without Ricky will be hard," head coach Rick LaRose said. "Somebody will have to step up and all five guys will have to play really well for us to contend."

Arizona, stuck at the number six spot in the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index for most of the year, finally jumped up to number four, behind the likes of Clemson (1), Texas (2) and Wake Forest (3).

The tournament should be a good one with five of the top-10 teams in the country set to play, but Arizona will have to get a lot of production from the four and five players to keep in the hunt.

"Without Ricky in the lineup, we'll have to play well," LaRose said. "We're a little shaky at the bottom, but Brian Woolf is playing great and we just need somebody to take that next spot."

With the first round of the Masters rained out, Barnes will get to do the same thing his teammates will be doing, but they won't have to do it alongside Tiger Woods.

The common response from all the players as they tee it up today is that everyone will have to play well, and with the guys Arizona has on the bench, the depth issue shouldn't be a problem.

"(This tournament) is going to require our top five guys stepping up," senior Andrew Medley said. "The depth of the team is there; we just have to step up and play."

Medley definitely was a key last week as he played the last two rounds 5-under par, and his 35-foot putt on 18 for birdie really kept Arizona from losing its own tournament.

The golfers will be playing 36 holes today and 18 tomorrow at the Karsten Golf Course on the Arizona State campus.