Trying to make up for bad shots compounded more mistakes on each other in the last tournament for the ISU men’s golf team.

“We are playing a little bit smarter,” said coach Andrew Tank. “Coming from the first tournament, those mistakes came out. They will be more comfortable in the second tournament and minimize those mistakes.”

The next tournament is the VCU Shootout, taking place in Richmond, Va., on Monday and Tuesday. Along with host school Virginia Commonwealth, the field consists of mostly Northeast and Atlantic schools like North Carolina, Maryland and James Madison. Only Wichita State and Iowa State are the schools from other regions. Wichita State comes in winning their last two tournaments.

The same field from Iowa State’s last tournament will be participating for the Cyclones again this time, featuring Nate McCoy, Zach Steffen, Sam Daley, Duncan Croudis and Scott Fernandez.

“We had a pretty good week of practice,” Tank said. “With one tournament under our belt, we know what to do and are looking for a nice improvement from everybody.”

McCoy was automatically chosen because of his top 10 finish in the last tournament. He also will be defending his title in this tournament after winning it last year with 208 strokes.

Steffen, who was a coach’s pick for the field, had problems with putting, especially in his first college-level tournament.

“I struggled with putting and quite a few three-putts,” Steffen said. “I hit a few bad shots that got me into trouble, and I didn’t get up and down a few times.”

Along with putting, Steffen also will improve his game in other areas for the upcoming tournament.

“I worked a lot on my longer putts,” Steffen said. “I also worked on a lot of short game stuff, because that’s where we can make up a lot of shots.”

Because there were so many first-time players for the Cyclones in the last event, they can’t get used to what they saw in Ann Arbor, Mich. The Hermitage Country Club in Richmond will provide a different pace for the players.

“The greens were pretty severe at Michigan,” Tank said. “Ann Arbor played a little bit longer because of the weather, but this course is definitely a bit longer.”