The ISU men’s golf team placed second at the Desert Shootout last week during Spring Break. The Cyclones shot their best rounds of the year, and set a new record low for 54 holes. Iowa State fired rounds of 277, 279 and 282, for a total of 838. The previous school record of 842 was recorded in 2006 at the Wolf Pack Classic.

“I’m very pleased with our practice all the way up to and throughout the tournament,” said coach Andrew Tank. “It couldn’t have gone much better.”

The Cyclones finished in second place behind Oklahoma, which shot a tremendous 816, another strong showing for Iowa State as the team tries to make a case for the postseason.

Currently, the Cyclones are ranked No. 88 according to golfweek.com, and finished ahead of No. 54 Tulsa, No. 44 TCU and No. 37 North Texas at the Desert Shootout.

“We’ve got five tournaments left in the season,” Tank said, “and beating a few teams around the top 50 really helps us get the momentum up for this last stretch.”

Leading up to the tournament, the team was able to get used to the outdoors again, get back into that groove that you can’t find just from playing indoors.

“We got to play at some really nice courses in Phoenix,” said junior Tom Lathrop. “It worked out well, everybody got to practice and prepare and play at some tough courses.”

For Iowa State, three of the six golfers tied or bested their career-low round. Lathrop fired a first round of 67, and had every round of the tournament below par. Lathrop summed up his success with one word: putting. Lathrop finished the tournament with an average of about 28 putts per 18 holes, and also only had two 3-putts.

“I’ve been working putting and my routine since about Thanksgiving,” Lathrop said. “I’m glad that it’s starting to come together, and it’s working out really well.”

The other Cyclones that recorded lows were Nate McCoy with a second round of 66 finishing in a tie for 13th, Michael Wuertz who finished in a tie for 26th had a 69 in the first round, and Borja Virto, who finished in a tie for 28th had a first round of 68.

“Some guys really stepped up,” Tank said. “So many good things were happening, and it was great to see it all come together.”

The ISU men’s golf team will have a week for some rest and school but will head back out onto the course March 28-29 at the First Tee Collegiate in Little Rock, Ark.