At the collegiate level, athletic success is difficult to achieve and even harder to sustain once it is attained. 

Looking at Iowa State men’s golf from afar before 2010, you would not have been blamed for wondering if success would ever find its way back to Ames for the golf program.

Iowa State golf had not made an NCAA regional trip since before the 2000s, and the Cyclones were not ranked as a top-50 program for more than 10 years.

As fate would have it, success did arrive with the hire of a new head coach in 2010.

His name is Andrew Tank.

Both he and the rosters he has constructed from all over the globe have transformed Iowa State men’s golf program into one of the most successful and consistent in all of Division I golf.

Before Tank started in 2010, the Cyclones hadn’t appeared in an NCAA Regional since 1999. In his second year, Tank directed the team to the 2012 NCAA Regional, the first since 1999.

Tank has helped a team or an individual to qualify for NCAA Regional competition in the last seven seasons (Team: 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018; Individual: 2013, 2016).

Tank and the Cyclones ended a 61-year drought by qualifying for the 2014 NCAA Championships, their first appearance at the national meet since 1953. He again led Iowa State to the NCAA championship in 2017, as the Cyclones tied for 18th, their best finish in the modern era.

Right after that, they made a second straight appearance in the 2018 NCAA Championship and ended up tying for 19th.

Currently, Iowa State ranks as No. 38 in Division I golf by Golfstat.

“I am so thankful that my first players chose to come to Iowa State and for their trust in me and the program I was going to lead,” Tank said. “Some of them came across the world to help me better the program and better themselves.”

Across the world is right, as half of the 2018-19 roster is from outside the United States. 

One of those players is sophomore Lachlan Barker from Willunga, Australia

Barker has already captured nine career top 10 finishes as a Cyclone and currently has 111 birdies for the season, making him on pace to surpass his 2017-18 total of 112 birdies.

Barker is not the first and will most likely not be the last recruiting success that Tank and Iowa State men’s golf have been able to bring in and add to a thriving program. 

Long before Barker stepped foot in Ames, Iowa State golf and the culture itself changed when Tank’s first recruiting class was announced.

Tank’s first recruiting class finished the season 9th in Golfstat Freshman Class Impact Rankings. Like many rosters to come for the Cyclones, it relied heavily on players from across the world to build a new culture in Ames.

It included Scott Fernandez (Granada, Spain), Duncan Croudis (Dunedin, New Zealand) and Sam Daley (Wynnum, Australia).

In the years after Tank’s first recruits graduated, Iowa State replenished the culture with golfers that would leave a lasting mark on the program’s history.

Nate McCoy, Scott Fernandez and Nick Voke became the biggest staples of Iowa State’s new golf culture since the arrival of Tank in 2010.

Assistant Coach Chad Keohane has been alongside Tank for four seasons and has seen firsthand how the program molds players into better versions of themselves. 

Keohane said that Iowa State men’s golf does its homework on the types of players they want to bring to Ames.

Keohane said that keeping the culture and environment of the men’s golf team player-friendly is top priority, so each recruit must fit the bill to become a part of the demanding program the Cyclones offer. 

“We want and have people that are in charge of their own game and who want to come here to get better,” Keohane said. “We are a small group, so one bad apple can spoil the bunch real quick so there is a lot of digging into the background who they are as people first and then golf second.”

McCoy, Fernandez and Voke became All-American golfers and All-Big 12 performers in their time at Iowa State.

Barker and many others see these three players as inspiration to keep the winning culture alive and well long into the future.

“I have a completely different perspective on golf now that I am over here under Coach Tank’s watch,” Barker said. “It is very inviting but very disciplined culture at Iowa State and I love it.”

Despite already bringing Iowa State golf back into the spotlight, Tank has bigger aspirations for the program, which he believes is starting to find its way.

“I’ve always said that I would like to become a top-25 program and to be able to sustain that,” Tank said. “We are knocking on the door of that but it is one thing to be in the conversation of being a top 25 program and another thing to cement yourself there, and that is what I want to accomplish while I am here.”