Seven top-50 teams. One event. On Monday, Iowa State men’s golf is set to enter a tough Big 12 gauntlet at the Big 12 Match Play in Hockley, Texas.

Iowa State will compete against four top-10 teams by the end of the event: No. 1 Oklahoma, No. 5 Oklahoma State, No. 8 Texas and No. 9 Kansas.

Teams will compete at the par-71, 7,007-yard course at Houston Oaks for the fourth consecutive season. The three-day tournament will consist of two-and-a-half days of pool play, with the final round in the afternoon of day three. Each team match will consist of six individual matches.

Iowa State has finished 1-4 twice and 0-5 once in the past three seasons of the match play. The teams it beat were West Virginia and TCU.

In the pool play, Iowa State, among other teams, will play four matches. Teams will get three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero points for a loss. After the matches, each team will be ranked 1-5 in their pool.

At the conclusion of pool play, each team will be ranked 1-5 within each pool.

Pool A: Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas, West Virginia and Kansas State

Pool B: Oklahoma State, Texas, TCU, Baylor and Iowa State

During the championship round of day three, the championship match will feature each team with the highest point total from each pool. Baylor is the defending champion.

Iowa State is coming off its worst match of the season, finishing 13th out of 14 teams in the Fighting Irish Classic. The Cyclones will look to cause some noise at the start of play Monday. 

On the bright side, Luke Gutschewski and Lachlan Barker have been golfing solid lately and will look to continue at the end of their fall season. Another note is the revolving door at the fifth spot for the Cyclones. Jake Slocum and Ricky Costello have both been in that spot with mixed numbers.

In the last two matches, the individual golfer has outscored the fifth place golfer by 10 strokes.