The ISU men’s golf team finished seventh out of 17 teams at the Oak Hills Invitational in San Antonio. The Cyclones were in 12th place after day one and jumped five spots to finish in a tie for seventh, perhaps saving their hopes for the NCAA Championships.

Although this was the second event of the spring season, the coaches said it seemed like the Cyclones felt much different from the season-opening Big Four match.

“The guys felt a little more pressure this week,” assistant coach Patrick Datz said. “There’s definitely something in competition that’s different and clicks over when it’s not just playing amongst each other.”

The Cyclones tallied a final score of 880, a mere four shots out of an outright fifth place. After struggling the first day, the Cyclones pushed through tougher conditions to shoot seven over and finish with the third best team score of the day. 

The team feels good about how it played the second day, but knows it can be more consistent and play better overall.

“The course was ours for the taking, and we didn’t capitalize,” junior Nate McCoy said. “It was frustrating.”

On day two, four out of the five ISU golfers improved score. Sophomore Borja Virto had his career best 18-hole score, firing an even 71, which was improved from his previous two rounds of 78 and 73. Junior Thomas Lathrop also improved, coming into the clubhouse with a 72, besting his earlier rounds of 77-74.

“I got off to a poor start on day one, and just had to trust what I had been working on the past few months, ” Lathrop said. “I just changed my mindset after the first nine holes of the tournament, and went from there.”

Datz said the Cyclones not only had a great last round, but the ISU golfers had an even better last five holes where they were “two or three under” and gained a large amount of ground on the other schools.

“I was happy to see that the guys responded,” coach Andrew Tank said. “They knew that the second day was a new day, so that was good to see that they came back and put up a solid round.”

Tank said the Cyclones’ effort on day two is what’s keeping them alive, and in holding their rank where it is as they stay in the hunt for the NCAA Championships.

“Moving from 12th to seventh place like that really helped,” Tank said. “We can’t afford to have three poor rounds when we’re trying to improve our ranking, so we may look back at the end of the season and say that this round saved us.”

Now that the Cyclones have a month off break, the coaches have decided the main focus will be the mental aspect of the game, and pre- and post-shot routine.

“This week showed that we aren’t where we need to be from a mental standpoint,” Tank said. “So we’re going to take the next three weeks to focus a lot on having the guys practice in game conditions and focus the mental standpoint of their game.”

The team has three weeks off until it heads to Phoenix for the Desert Shootout on March 17 to 19.