In the last four years, no Marquette men’s golf team has played in a match play event.

That streak will end this Friday, Oct. 30, when the team travels to Southern Pines, N.C. to participate in the Match Play at Pine Needles, which runs through Sunday.

In match play ,golfers compete hole by hole, and the golfer who wins the most holes wins the match.

So far this year, the team has played in three tournaments: the Kansas, Xavier, and Firestone Invitationals. In those three tournaments it finished in the top three once (a third place finish at Xavier) and the bottom three twice (tied for 12th at Kansas and tied for eighth at the Firestone).

Sophomore Ryan Prickette said the team feels that they have underachieved so far this season.

“Everyone would agree that the season’s been a disappointment to this point. We haven’t been able to get everyone to play at a level they know they can play at, all at once. That’s what we need to do in order to be competitive,” Prickette said. “We all know we haven’t played to our potential, although we showed glimpses at Xavier.”

Prickette said while no one on the team has played in match play while at Marquette, most of the team has had experience with match play at some point in their golf careers.

“A lot of us Wisconsin guys have experience with match play at the Junior Master’s Tournament,” Prickette said. “I have won it twice and Ben (Sieg) won it once.”

Senior Mike McDonald said the team will need to be more mentally prepared for match play than any of its three previous tournaments.

“Match play is more of a mind game than a regular stroke play round, because you’re going against an opponent,” McDonald said. “You still have to manage your game to get it in the hole, but you also need to keep an eye on your competitor, because that can alter how aggressive you need to be.”

McDonald said opponents like to play mind games to psych out their opponents, especially on the green.

“Some opponents will give you putts and some will make you putt everything out. It comes down to putting in match play,” McDonald said. “If you can make your putts at the end of the round when you need to, then you’ll be the one to win.”

Prickette wants to make sure that he’s the one demoralizing his opponent on the green.

“I’m a relatively good putter so that’s allowed me to have some success in match play,” Prickette said. “I’m really looking forward to Pine Needles and dropping some long putts on some guys so they feel they need to do something superhuman to beat me.”

Besides the new style of play, this event features a new brand of opponents: Big East Conference opponents. Redshirt junior Ben Sieg is excited to show how good Marquette golf can be against a Big East field.

“We haven’t seen a lot of teams since April,” Seig said. “It’ll be nice to see how we stack up player by player with those teams.”

Although Marquette hasn’t played well as a team, individually they have shown promise, which gives hope for the upcoming event.