The ISU men’s golf team came into the year not really knowing what to expect.

It had just lost the best player from the 2009 team and arguably one of the best players the program has ever had, Ben Herrera.

The team had two new coaches with Andrew Tank coming in from the University of Minnesota, and soon after Patrick Datz was acquired to be an assistant coach.

None of the players knew who to expect going into the season, or who would step up and lead the team.

“There was a feeling of uncertainty coming in,” said junior Nate McCoy. “We lost the best player on the team last year with Ben, and so as a team I didn’t know how we would deal with that.”

The coaches only had stats from previous years and this summer to get an idea of the players’ abilities, and they also didn’t know what they could accomplish.

“We came in without any real expectations for the guys,” Datz said. “We focused more on helping them become better, and as a coach learn more about them so that I can help them easier.”

Tank mentioned that he chose to go without a captain because he felt the entire team has the potential to play well, and his decision has shown to be true.

Each player that traveled with the team had at least one finish in the top 10. With that statistic, one would think that the Cyclones would be continually on the top of the leaderboards, but a lack of consistency was the theme this fall season.

“It was definitely frustrating,” Datz said. “It’s hard to know as a coach that your team has the capability to play at a high level, and you don’t execute.”

The team showed its flashes of brilliance throughout the entire fall season, but the team also showed that it struggled to stay playing at that level of brilliance.

“We had a good fall,” Datz said. “Obviously we had Nate [McCoy] win a tournament, but everyone else is right there.”

The team had a tournament score average of 891 through its first five tournaments which is up from last year’s 878 average through five. The numbers aren’t as good this year, but that doesn’t mean this team is any worse than last year.

“I know the potential is there,” Datz said. “Last year’s team almost made regionals, and this year we’ve had five guys finish in the top 10, and obviously Nate [McCoy] has played excellent for us this fall.”

McCoy has seemingly stepped forward as the team’s leader so far. His fall average is the exact same as it was last year, 73.27, but he accomplished more this year. Besides his first-round blunder at the Wolf Run Invitational, McCoy finished in the top 18 at every tournament including finishing fifth at the D.A. Weibring Invitational and winning the VCU Shootout.

“I felt like individually this fall went well,” McCoy said. “One of my goals was to win two college tournaments, and I’m halfway there. I still feel like I’m underperforming though, because I know I can be better.”

The team as a whole seems to be in the same situation. Just like McCoy, there were times when the team looked like one of the best in the Big 12, but it needed to get consistency going and put it all together.

“I feel confident with how we’ve played so far,” McCoy said. “I wasn’t sure how we’d play coming in, but we’ve played well, it’s just obviously our consistency that needs to improve for us to keep improving.”

You can sense that the team is heading into the winter break with a bit of a chip on their shoulder. They know they have the ability to perform at an extremely high level, and they also know that they are right there when it comes to getting over that hill of inconsistency.

“We feel pretty good,” Datz said.” There were a lot of positives in the fall, so during the winter I think we need to work on finishing strong, and just getting better overall as golfers.”