Postseason play is less than a month away for the ISU women’s golf team and, in the final, regular-season event, the Cyclones will face their sternest test to date.

No. 24 Iowa State is set to compete at the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic in Athens, Ga., a tournament that will provide a unique format combining stroke and match-play.

“The first round is stroke play and the next three rounds will be match play. The first rounds seeds everyone, so it’s 18 Friday for seeding and 36 on Saturday,” said ISU coach Christie Martens.

Tournament play will then conclude with 18 holes on Sunday.

Stroke play is golf’s traditional scoring method, totaling the number of strokes for 18 holes. In match play, two golfers compete against one another and the most individual holes won determines the winner.

Once a pure stroke-play event, 2014 marks the first year the Liz Murphey Invitational will incorporate match play. The format correlates with the change the NCAA Division I Championships will make in 2015, moving from stroke play to a stroke-play/match-play mix.

Aside from getting exposure to match-play in hopes of future NCAA Championship appearances, Martens said she is more focused on seeing how her team measures up to some of the top teams that will be in the field.

“I think it’s pretty cool because it’s got a lot of the best teams in the country,” Martens said. “[No. 1] Southern Cal’s there, we haven’t seen them yet; [No. 4] Arkansas, [No. 28] Auburn. There’s quite a few SEC teams and just some teams we haven’t seen a lot so I think that will be fun.”

While match-play is not common in collegiate events, several Cyclones have experience with the format.

“I played in the US Publinx,” said senior Prima Thammaraks, referring to the US Amateur Public Links Championship, one of the top amateur events. “The format was really similar. We played stroke-play, then you get seeded from that round, then play match-play.”

Sophomore teammate Cajsa Persson also has experience in match-play, playing in club championships at home in Sweden.

From her experience, Persson said mental strength is even more essential in match-play.

“You kind of have to be mentally strong, you can’t show that you’re a weak person when you play match play,” Persson said.

Iowa State is one of just a handful of northern teams in both Golfstat’s top 25 and in this weekend’s field.

Persson said this week will serve as a measuring stick to compare the team against some of the nation’s elite.

“I saw that there are really good teams there. That just makes it more exciting to show that we are among those best teams, we can play with those teams,” Persson said. “In match-play, anything can happen, so I’m excited.”