Traveling to Texas for four days to play golf sounds like a lot of fun. But getting back and catching up on missed classes and sleep is the part of the game that is often overlooked.

Catching up is a daily theme for ISU student-athletes. The Cyclones’ men’s and women’s golf teams play most of their tournaments on Mondays and Tuesdays and returned from Waco, Texas early Wednesday morning.

“It is not easy,” senior Jeremy Lyons said.

“People might think all golfers have to do is practice now and then. I would say it is one of the most time-consuming sports you can play in college. You study whenever you can on the plane or in the airport.”

Lyons, a senior in marketing, is an academic All-American because of what he has accomplished on the course and in the class room.

Take this past tournament in Waco, Texas, for example, when the ISU team took off on Saturday and returned to Ames an hour into Wednesday morning.

“The guys just missed Monday and Tuesday worth of class,” head coach Jay Horton said. “A lot of them were studying on the plane, and it isn’t uncommon for someone to miss a test. We flew into Des Moines at midnight and got into Ames around 1 a.m. Then everyone gets up for their 8 o’clock classes.

“A couple guys have to make up tests this week and some have to qualify for the following event this week in practice.”

Lyons said he will miss half of his Tuesday and Thursday classes for the first five weeks of the school year.

“I have 400-level courses and you have to be there for those,” he said. “It isn’t like freshman year with your big lectures where you can get the notes from anyone. You can read what you missed, but you still aren’t up to par with everyone else.”

Meeting teachers at office hours and making up assignments are common practice for Lyons, who is set to graduate in May.

“Right now we are in the middle of five straight weeks of golf,” he said. “When you are missing two days each week and busting your butt to catch up on the three days you are in class that can be tough. You do that knowing that you will do it all again the next week.”

High performance

For as long as Horton has been head coach at Iowa State (since the 1999-2000 season), the men’s golf team has had the highest GPA of all ISU male sports.

“That speaks highly — that they miss class and still dedicate to playing and maintaining their studies,” Horton said. “It says a lot about their character.”

Golf is one of only a few yearlong sports at Iowa State. This year, the team has six meets in the fall and seven meets in the spring, plus the postseason. That doesn’t leave a lot of free time.

“We have one week off while we are in school.” Lyons said. “It is right after the fall season finishes, and then it is back to conditioning and heading to Des Moines [for indoor training during winter].”

Golf conditioning consists of 6 a.m. workouts every Wednesday, Friday and non-meet Monday. The golfers run, lift weights and stretch to increase their athleticism.

“Tiger Woods changed the whole game of golf.” Horton said. “He made it more popular but also more athletic. You used to think of golfers who rode in carts with their cooler of beer and cigar.”

A lot has changed in conditioning since Horton graduated from Alabama-Birmingham, where he won the Sun Belt conference championship as a senior in 1991.

“We just walked around the course and ran a few laps, but it was nothing extensive. Pretty much just playing was all we did. Now everybody is doing something, whether it’s stretching, running or conditioning.”

Because of the teams five-week stretch of tournaments, Horton canceled early morning workouts for this week.

“I told them in the Atlanta airport on the way back and there was a lot of happiness and elation,” he said. “We were up at 5:15 a.m. on Monday and 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, so we have some tired players.”

Lyons is one.

“It is great,” Lyons said. “I will get to catch up on sleep and school. It is nice not getting up at 5:30 a.m. It gets your body rested. These trips can wear you out.”