With day one of PGA Tour Q-School 2023 in the books, it's time to turn back to my usual grind of selecting the Upper Midwest Connection of the Week. Last week, there were seven Umcees involved on significant tours the world over. Tom Hoge and Erik van Rooyen teed it up at the Horizon Irish Open on the DP World Tour. The former did so ahead of his participation this week at the BMW PGA Championship, which has historically been the most prestigious event in the British Isles for tour golf outside the Open Championship. He gets to participate this year for having nailed down a top-fifty finish in the FedEx Cup, which entitles him to tee times in next season's bigwig "Signature Events." Meanwhile, van Rooyen took advantage of a fortnightly stretch of decent-profile golf before he begins his purgatory for a second straight disappointing PGA Tour season at the Fortinet Championship this week.
Not to be confused with this week's FedEx Cup Fall opener, the PGA Tour Canada had its much-anticipated swan song at the Fortinet Cup Championship in Calgary. Three Umcees qualified as a result of their good performances on the PGA Tour Canada's final season before it merges with the PGA Tour Latinoamerica to form the PGA Tour Americas next year: George Kneiser, Thomas Longbella and Derek Hitchner. Lastly, Kate Smith and Kim Kaufman took on the Black Desert Resort Championship with its unprecedented purse (for the Epson Tour) of $375K.
So, how did everybody do? Kaufman missed the cut at the Black Desert, so she was eliminated by default. Ultimately, Smith wasn't much better, finishing 72nd--dead last--among those who did make the cut. Hoge and Longbella showed up during the workweek but fell apart at the weekend, while Kneiser fell apart in the final round. Kneiser avoided the heartbreak of losing his bye to Second Stage by .79 Fortinet Cup point! Longbella wasn't so lucky. Needing a good week to replicate last year's feat of making Second Stage right off the bat, he imploded for a T55, finishing 33rd in the Fortinet Cup. Hoge, who battled allergies in Ireland, finished outside the top eighty despite making the cut.
That leaves two candidates: Hitchner and van Rooyen. The South African, who is an Umcee by virtue of his University of Minnesota education and playing Gopher golf, saved his best for last by carding a -5 Sunday to rise to a T16 in County Kildare's K Club at Adare Manor. He's even back in the OWGR top 200 (such as it is) for the first time since his 3M Open MC. However, he didn't even have the biggest jump of anybody in that tourney, won by Sweden's Vince Norrman (who, you will recall, also won the Barbasol Championship on the PGA Tour to gain membership through 2025). You know who did in his?
Derek Hitchner.
Unlike van Rooyen, he unfortunately didn't save his best for last, as he slogged to a +2 Sunday to finish the weekend on -16, good for a third-placed tie with Jeffrey Kang. What he did do was jump from #45 to #22 in the final Fortinet Cup standings, as well as get nearly 200 places closer to the top thousand in the OWGR. Admittedly, his placement in Second Stage in late November was already secure, seeing as how he finished top-20 in the PGA Tour U standings this year. Still, it was great to see Hitchner crack the top 40 every time he made the cut this year. Not bad for a guy who skipped two events this PGA Tour Canada season and missed two other cuts!
This week, as mentioned above, the FedEx Cup Fall kicks off with the Fortinet Championship. (Gee, all these mentions of the same corporate sponsor for two different events on two different PGA Tour-sanctioned tours! I personally miss when it was the Safeway Open.) In addition to van Rooyen, Troy Merritt will be teeing it up as part of his efforts to keep his PGA Tour card. Again, Hoge will be in England, participating in the BMW PGA Championship. The winner of that gets an invite to next year's U.S. Open and the next three Open Championships.
Edward the Scop
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