After a record-breaking 54 holes at its last tournament, you might think there is fear of a let-down for Iowa State’s men’s golf team. After performing at such a high level and playing up to that potential, playing beneath it can be disheartening.

But they’re not worried.

“It’s important that the guys enjoyed what they did last meet,” said assistant coach Patrick Datz, “but it was just one tournament, and now we’re on to the next one.”

The Cyclones will be competing this week in the First Tee Collegiate in Little Rock, Ark. The meet will be featuring a total of seven teams in the top 100, according to golfstat.com’s latest rankings.

At the previous meet in Phoenix, Ariz., the Cyclones successfully took down No. 54 Tulsa, No. 44 TCU and No. 37 North Texas. The coaches aren’t too worried about using the results as a comparison, but rather using their own performance as the measuring stick.

“It’s not always about measuring ourselves against other teams,”Datz said, “but instead measuring ourselves against our capabilities.”

This past fall, the team experienced a lot of ups and downs, and ultimately finished the first part of the season on a sour note of inconsistency. This meet is just another chance for them to prove that they can keep performing at the high level of which they are capable.

“I think we can have similar results,” said junior Nate McCoy. “We may not shoot as low as we did, but I think if we focus like we did last meet, we should be fine.” 

There are only a few weeks left before the postseason, and the coaches know that it’s time to make the move to get there. In the next three weeks the team has four meets, and if they can stay consistent, they think they can make a jump up in the rankings.

“We’ve got this long stretch of tournaments coming up, so that’s going to be an advantage,” Datz said. “So if we can get into our groove, we can play well and hopefully move up the rankings.”