As a new month begins, the Iowa State men’s golf team is heading down the homestretch of the first half of their regular season, as they make their way to South Bend, Indiana, for the Fighting Irish Classic.

Iowa State will play at the Fighting Irish Classic on Oct. 7-8, with a chance to make history. If Iowa State can claim another top-three finish, it will be the first time since the 1993-94 season that the Cyclones will have placed in the top three at their first three tournaments of the year. Coach Andrew Tank is excited by the idea of the team making history but knows they can do more.

“I am pretty excited about how we have started our year, but we haven’t even hit our full stride yet,” Tank said.

The last time Iowa state went to South Bend to play in a tournament was in 2004-05.

15 teams will participate at the tournament including Wisconsin, Michigan State, the host school Notre Dame and Iowa. The tournament will consist of three rounds, and Tank has worked with the team all week, trying to eliminate mistakes as soon as the first round begins.

“We have to execute our strategy so we put ourselves in position by the greens because last tournament if you missed the green on the wrong spot, it was really difficult to save par,” Tank said. “That will be the same at Notre Dame. The rough will be pretty thick so we have to execute.”

Iowa State has seen two great performances in the first two tournaments of the year with sophomore Lachlan Barker finishing second at the Badger Invitational and junior Tripp Kinney also earned a second place finish at the Windon Memorial. Barker may not have had his best performance last time around but knows what needs to fix to achieve more success.

“One word, fast,” Barker said. “If we come out of the gates strong we will be in great position. Our first two [tournaments] started slow, and we started in a position where we had to climb out of our first round scores.”

With this being one of the last two tournaments of the year, Barker feels that the team should not think about the future. The team must relax and play their game.

“All of us have to treat it like all the others. We can’t overthink this one,” said Barker. “If we do our routine to the best of our ability and play free, good things will happen.”