The Iowa State men’s golf travels up north to the University of Minnesota for the Gopher Invitational from Sept. 11-12. The Cyclones coming off an 11th place finish at the Fighting Irish Classic in South Bend, Indiana, look to make improvements from last week. 

Sophomore Luke Gutschewski led the team in individual score in the last match; however, he believes he can do much better individually and feels like he has more gas in the tank. 

“I definitely could’ve played better last match,” Gutschewski said. “Good results are always good to see though. My goal is to win an individual match this year. That’s really hard to do in college golf.” 

Gutschewski is the leader of this team, and when he can stay uncomplacent with his strong individual performance, it defiantly sets the tone for improvement for the entire roster. Gutschewski’s main thing on avoiding this year is complacency. 

“I don’t want the team to get complacent. I want us to stay hungry for more,” Gutschewski said.

This young, hungry Cyclone team seems to have more of a match-by-match approach to this season not having many specific team goals besides reaching nationals. However, in this upcoming matchup, the Cyclones will run into a lot of familiar teams they faced off against last match in South Bend. 

“A lot of teams we played at Notre Dame will be at this invitational, so we’ll get another crack at them and hopefully perform a little bit better this time around,” head coach Andrew Tank said. 

Minnesota’s golf course, Windsong Golf Course also has a similar course format and setup to the Cyclone’s practice facility. 

The Windsong Golf course is a fast and firm course, and all the players seem confident and comfortable bouncing back from their last performance. With Tank being a former Minnesota golfer and assistant coach, he’s experienced with the course he’ll be able to navigate his team as much as he can. 

“Jake and Nate played there last year, Nate’s played another tournament there, so we have some familiarity with the golf course, and when you have some familiarity with a course, that’s always good,” Tank said.

The Cyclones have one lineup change going into this match. 

“We’re making one change from last match, Jake Slocum is starting in place of Lukas Pany,” Tank said. 

Slocum, who has experience at Windsong, should be a better fit to help the Cyclones improve from not only last week, but last year’s match as well.