The moment the ISU golf team has worked toward all season is finally at hand.

With its regular season over, the Cyclones will tackle the competition at the Big 12 Championship in Hutchinson, Kan., on Monday. On the line for the team is a trip to the NCAA Championship to be played June 1-4.

The winner of the tournament receives an automatic bid into the NCAA Championship.

In an extremely competitive conference and on a difficult golf course, ISU head coach Jay Horton said he knows his team will have to play at the top of its abilities.

“Starting this season — having some young guys playing and shuffling in and out of the lineup — it took us a while to find who the top five guys were,” Horton said. “That put us a little behind.

“Now, I think we’re playing as well as we have all year. I’ve believed in these guys all year, and now they’re believing in themselves that they can win. Once they believe they can do it, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.”

Horton said the Big 12 is home to nine teams ranked in the top 40, meaning the Cyclone compete in one of the toughest conferences in the country.

“When you come to Iowa State, you get to play against the best and find out how good you are,” Horton said.

Not only is the competition tough, the host golf course is no easy task either.

Prairie Dunes Country Club has a U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Amateur Championship on its resume, and the course is rated as one of the top 25 courses in the world, Horton said.

In preparation for this season’s Big 12 Championship, the course has been made even more challenging.

“They’ve lengthened the golf course a bit to bring it up to date,” Horton said. “The course was never that long, but it’s really predicated on the wind.”

Horton also knows his team could face some harsh playing conditions.

“It’s major championship golf,” Horton said.

“The courses we’ve played and the conditions we’ve played, they don’t get any harder on the PGA Tour. [The course] is set up for a U.S. Open- or PGA Championship-type test. It’s going to test every part of their game.”

The Cyclones enter the tournament on a hot streak.

Iowa State is coming off a team victory on April 13 at the ASU Indian Classic in Jonesboro, Ark., a tournament where senior Jeremy Lyons also took top individual honors.

A Cyclone golfer has won two of the team’s last three tournaments, dating back to sophomore Tyler Swanson’s win at the Stevinson Ranch Invitational on March 29-30.

Both Lyons and Swanson will be attempting to help their team advance through to the next tournament. The pair is also looking to post scores that would help advance themselves in individual competition. The top six finishers from each district on teams that do not advance qualify as individuals.

“I think they’re extremely talented and capable of being able to do it,” Horton said of Lyons and Swanson.

“They have lofty goals and they want to make it individually,” he continued. “I fully expect those two to go down there and play great.”

Horton said outstanding individual performances will also help the team move forward.

“If they play up to what they need to do to advance as an individual, it’s going to help our team do what we need to do to win the tournament,” he said. “They go hand in hand.”