After a 97-day break between

tournaments, the ISU men’s golf team will head back into

competition.

The mid-semester offseason will come

to a close when the Cyclones play at the Big Four Challenge against

three other Iowa universities and colleges this Saturday in

Phoenix.

“We haven’t played in a while, so

getting our shots back to where they were last semester will be

important,” said freshman Scott Fernandez. “Hopefully once we get

out on the greens, it’ll be like we never left.”

Although it is the first tournament

of the semester, it is not the first official tournament of the

spring semester.

“The nice thing about this

tournament, this weekend with playing against the other teams from

Iowa, it is sort of a warm up,” said coach Andrew Tank. “It’ll be a

nice way to start the season.”

“Among the four teams playing this

weekend, Iowa will be the biggest competition for the Iowa State,”

Tank said.

“Iowa is ranked 30th, and we’re

[ranked] 42nd,” Tank said. “We were fortunate to beat them at this

event last year, and we haven’t seen them yet this

year.”

Even though this is a one-day

tournament, there will still be plenty of shots for the players to

work on this weekend.

“We’ll still get 36 holes in, and we

always have one 36-hole day at the tournaments,” Tank said.

“That’ll be good preparation to see where the guys are at with

getting back out there and playing 36 holes in one day.”

At the end of last semester, it was

senior Nate McCoy who led the team to its victory at the

Bridgestone Golf Collegiate by winning the tournament. As this

semester starts, Tank said it’ll be the senior as well as two

freshmen who aim to lead the Cyclones on the links.

“Fernandez, he won our second

tournament in the fall, now that he has a full semester under his

belt, he’ll be somebody to watch for,” Tank said. “Sam Daley played

well as a freshman in the fall for us, so I expect good things from

him as well.”