The so-called "challenge season" is upon us in PGA Tour golf. It's also known as the "silly season," with the only such event offering official rewards being last week's Hero World Challenge, which has long offered OWGR points (such as the system is). Most of the stateside rank and file will hang it up until January, when two events in Hawai'i--the Sentry, which is limited to last calendar year's winners and top-50 finishers in last year's FedEx Cup Playoffs; and the Sony Open, which is the first full-field event of the calendar year--will awaken the cycle from its annual one-month slumber. The only Umcee participating in the challenge season is Tom Hoge, who won the QBE Shootout alongside Sahith Theegala last year; as defending champions of what has been reimagined as the Grant Thornton Invitational for mixed-gender teams of PGA Tour and LPGA Tour golfers, both were invited to the first edition of that incarnation. The only event that follows is the PNC Championship, which I regard even less serious than the Grant Thornton.
But in the Southern Hemisphere, it's a different matter. Already, four events have been played on the 2024 DP World Tour season--two each in South Africa and Australia, with one event in each country each of the last two weeks in concurrent fashion. Although no Umcees were involved in any of these events, it's worth noting the stakes at play. Dean Burmester, having taken his talents to the blood megabucks of LIV Golf, garnered some serious OWGR points by his standards by winning both the Joburg Open and the South African Open. His fellow defector, Joaquin Niemann of Chile, won the golf Aussie Open last week, and I tried to watch to the end Saturday night (Twin Cities time). Unfortunately, technical difficulties emerged on Golf Channel, and I turned my fake T.V. off. (I have YouTube TV for my subscription T.V. service.) Four others who hadn't already made next year's Open Championship at Royal Troon in Scotland also qualified via Joburg and the Aussie Open.
And it's not just overseas golf that was serious last week. The final week of eliminations for Q-school transpired as well. When the dust had settled, 79 golfers took their place alongside 89 others who were already exempt to Final Stage. The latter category includes one Umcee, Frankie Capan III of North Oaks, Minnesota, who doubled as last year's Q-school darling by making the Korn Ferry Tour with guaranteed starts despite starting in prequalifying. Three other Umcees--Van Holmgren, Andre Metzger and Alex Schaake--earned their way to Final Stage in mid-November, and five more had a chance to join the quartet. Four of them, though, fell short of Final Stage, including Matthew Walker, who had won a medal in First Stage to guarantee PGA Tour Americas starts. The most painful shortfall, however, belonged to Derek Hitchner of Minneapolis. The Blake School grad and Pepperdine Waves star, who had helped lead his team to the NCAA meet in May, fell a single stroke short of qualifying out of Valencia, California despite a -4 final round. One fewer bogey and he would have joined nineteen others making it to TPC Sawgrass next week for Q-school finals, including this week's Upper Midwest Connection of the Week...
Thomas Longbella.
The former Minnesota Gopher from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin finished joint-second only to Jeffrey Kang at the same site. It seemed he wouldn't make Final Stage either, but he turned it around in the last thirty holes, doing more than enough to comfortably advance to finals on -8/280. If all else fails, he will at least have PGA Tour Americas status next year.
This week's Upper Midwest Connection of the Week has (for now) two finalists, as Kim Kaufman missed the cut at LPGA Q-Series, while Kate Smith made it. In addition, Erik van Rooyen tees it up for the first time since losing his BFF Jon Trasamar to melanoma. At the funeral mass last Friday, van Rooyen read the lesson from I Thessalonians about the Second Coming. The stream was on the funeral home's website. Now, he is refocusing for the Alfred Dunhill Championship in his native South Africa, and he tees off at 11pm tonight Central (10pm Mountain). I hope he wins another or otherwise kicks ass for his "Gipper."
Edward the Scop
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