The fall season has ended the for the ISU men’s golf team, but the work is far from over.

The Cyclones ended the first half of the season on a low note, carding its second worst total of the season, but the coaches and players are heading into the winter break with an immense amount of motivation.

“We have a lot of work to do,” said coach Andrew Tank. “We’ve shown that we’re capable of playing at a high level, but we’ve also shown that we’re not very consistent at playing at that level.”

Now that the season is over, it gives the golfers a chance to be students, and with the break they’ll get a chance to focus on school more than normal.

“This will give the players a chance to really just be college students for a while,” said Tank. “They can focus on their studies, and enjoy a little off time.”

Although the winter break is a nice time for the golfers to catch up on school, they will be working to improve on every aspect from lifting weights to strengthen their core, to flexibility workouts to help loosen their muscles.

“We’ve been through a detailed physical analysis of each player,” Tank said. “Now we’re going to sit down and address those things they need to work on.”

The scores for the team dipped in the last meet. Before this last tournament, through the middle of the fall season, the team had strung together three straight strong finishes.

The team finished second overall at the D.A. Weibring Invitational, led by Nate McCoy and Borja Virto, who both tied for fifth. The Cyclones got their lowest score total of the year at the Firestone Invitational, led that time by Nathan Leary’s seventh place showing. McCoy also is the only Cyclone to take an individual win, doing so at the VCU Shootout.

With the lack of consistency and production in the last meet, the coaches are ready to push the players intensely. Some players, though, don’t seem to need to be pushed to work hard.

McCoy, a junior from West Des Moines, has been leading the team all year with a 73.08 stroke average, which is the best of his career. He insists he’s ready to improve this off season.

“I’m going to approach this winter with a strong work ethic to strive and get better every day,” McCoy said. “The biggest thing is that I need to keep my confidence up, and to improve my mental game, I know my ability is there.”

Another player that sounds ready to go is junior Michael Wuertz. He was the consistent player of the team all fall. After playing his worst rounds at the first meet of the year, Wuertz never finished outside the top 30 after that.

“After I take a short break, I will start practicing and playing outside again as if I have a tournament coming up,” Wuertz said.

“I think that it’s important to spend as much time outside so you can try and shorten the off season.”

The team knows they have a long winter ahead, but are willing to work as hard as it takes to get to the NCAA Championships, and make their mark.

“There’s a lot of things that we need to improve on,” Tank said.

“To me that’s the most exciting part about the off-season.”