Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 25 February 2024

 It was a quiet week for the PGA Tour to conclude the West Coast Swing. After seven weeks of generally good-to-great fields, the Mexico Open (in its third year as a Tour event--though as the national open of Mexico, it's a lot older than that, dating to 1944) lacked for star power. This wasn't surprising, as top players were coming off what I regard as a tumultuous string of big-time events--two in Hawai'i, four in California and one in the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. Most bigwigs on the Tour will forego the event formerly known as the Honda Classic, preparing for next week's Arnold Palmer Invitational, as that is a signature event (if not the Players Championship the week after). After all, even the best need to rest.

This opened a door for Umcees to show what they were made of. However, Tom Hoge is one of the aforementioned top players, at least based on his performances last year, which entitle him to automatic exemption into this year's signature events. Hence, he opted to skip the Mexico Open and stay stateside. Still, the field had a third Umcee in addition to Erik van Rooyen and Troy Merritt, as Ben Sigel of Deephaven, Minnesota successfully passed through 36-plus holes of open qualifying to make it to the Vidanta Vallarta complex. I say plus because he needed to get through an odd-one-out playoff at the final qualifier ten days beforehand against three others. That's right, it took place the week before to allow for travel planning on the part of the qualified players.

Though I can only assume Sigel enjoyed his experience in Mexico, he failed to make the cut. Fortunately to avoid a default-winner situation for this week's Upper Midwest Connection of the Week honour, Troy Merritt cleared the cutline by two strokes. He didn't do diddly-squat after that, though, finishing T58. You want to know who did fare well at Vidanta?

Erik van Rooyen.

He did so well Thursday that he finished the day as first-round leader. Admittedly, his contention was pretty much gone by the end of round 3 Saturday, as he struggled to break par during the last three rounds, but he still secured his first top-ten finish of the year. It's also his first top ten since winning the World Wide Technology Championship, also held on Mexican soil. He especially impressed in off-the-tee play, but his biggest success may have been at the par-5 No 6, where he smacked an iron 260+ yards and came within 22" of 3-under on that hole alone. That alone was the difference between settling for merely top twenty yet again and where he finished the week. It was good enough to bump him up three spots in the FedEx Cup to #42 and for him to jump to #83 in the OWGR. The latter feat enabled him to knock Thriston Lawrence out of the top two South Africans (Christiaan Bezuidenhout tops that list) according to the world rankings, which is where he'll need to be in mid-June or so to qualify for his first Olympics in Paris. Let me tell you, I will be singing the Minnesota Rouser every time he makes a good play at the Olympics if he makes it there. Lastly, he jumped to #19 in the Presidents Cup standings, though he still has work to do to make the team.

This week, as mentioned above, is marked by the event formerly known as the Honda Classic. It's now the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches, and all the big three Umcees will be there, as Hoge would probably use the tourney to tune up for consecutive bigwig events over the next fortnight. However, I would also like to cast light upon the Korn Ferry Tour's awakening from early-year hibernation. After playing for four consecutive weeks from mid-January to early-to-mid-February, the richest developmental circuit in world golf took the following couple weeks off. Now, though, the Argentine Open marks the start of a brief resumption of activity on that tour, with the Chile Classic next week. It will see another three Umcees participate, only one of whom--Frankie Capan III--is a full member of the tour. The other two--Van Holmgren of Plymouth, Minnesota (former North Dakota State Bison, though he finished his college career at Florida Gulf Coast) and Thomas Longbella of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin (and former Minnesota Gopher) --became eligible to play the event via their placement at last year's Q-school finals. Two other Umcees--Dakotas Tour icon Andre Metzger, who lives part of the year in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Alex Schaake, former Iowa Hawkeye--were offered places but declined for whatever reason. That's still a trio of Umcees competing for a potential invite to the Open Championship this summer in Scotland at Royal Troon!

As for the Cognizant Classic, this is the final major checkpoint for qualification for the Players. The top ten in the FedEx Cup get in if they aren't already exempt, along with everybody eligible from the OWGR top 50. If there are fewer than 142 exempt at that point, the remaining slots are filled by either the winners of the Arnold Palmer and the Puerto Rico Open (held opposite the API) or via the post-Cognizant FedEx Cup standings. All of the big three Umcees are in the field, with van Rooyen having won the WWT and Hoge and Merritt getting in on account of last year's FedEx Cup Fall final list of eligibles.

Edward the Scop

FA Cup 2023-24: Fifth Round Picks and Rant

 If there are two aspects I absolutely hate about the slow-motion destruction and devaluation of the FA Cup, the loss of replays in the later, more prestigious rounds is one, and the scheduling of fifth-round fixtures during the week that the UEFA Champions League is off at midweek is the other. Fixture congestion is a copout used by the bigwig clubs to justify expanding European competitions to a breaking point, as Phil Annets' well-written blog post illustrates. I won't get into the details of what he has to say, but I chuckled at how he compared this expansion to Japanese knotweed.

Starting with this round--the fifth of the proper stage--there won't be any replays. In fact, because of the aforementioned desecration of the Cup, last month's third-round replays and this month's fourth-round replays will, for now, be the last ever played in their respective rounds--all to accommodate a new Swiss-system league phase with eight (up from six) fixtures per qualified club in each of the European club competitions. Coupled with the increase of qualified teams from 32 to 36 per competition, per year (108 total!) and the fact that two-thirds get to play at least two more matches in Europe on top of the league phase, and it's easy to explain why so many big-club managers--Guardiola, Klopp, Arteta, et al.--falsely blame the Cup for congestion. What they ignore or don't know is the need of smaller clubs for the revenue that comes from participation and gaining replays against bigger-name teams. They don't understand the beauty of David placing the stone on the correct spot of Goliath's forehead, as Maidstone United did to Ipswich Town last round--at Portman Road, no less. All they care about is money first, football nowhere (to use another phrase utilized extensively by the FA Cup Factfile in all its manifestations).

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, you still want me to give fifth-round picks. Sigh...

Monday, 26 February

Coventry City 2-1 Maidstone United (actual 5-0; 100pt)

Tuesday, 27 February

AFC Bournemouth 1-2 Leicester City (actual 0-1, AET; 100pt)

Blackburn Rovers 1-2 Newcastle United (actual 1-1, Newcastle United on pens 3-4; 120pt)

Luton Town 1-3 Manchester City (actual 2-6; 100pt)

Wednesday, 28 February

Chelsea 1-2 Leeds United (actual 3-2; 30pt)

Nottingham Forest 1-2 Manchester United (actual 0-1, 100pt)

Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-2 Brighton and Hove Albion (actual 1-0; 100pt)

Liverpool 3-2 Southampton (actual 3-0; 140pt)

Edward the Scop

Note for the Upcoming Week's Action (20-25 February 2024)

 Preface: Because only one Umcee, Tom Hoge, competed last week (at the Genesis Invitational), I opted to not award an Upper Midwest Connection of the Week honour for the week. Hence, the present post concerns the upcoming week's action, rather than the one before.

Last week's Genesis Invitational was thrilling with Hideki Matsuyama's comeback from six strokes adrift of Patrick Cantlay, at least for those fans who follow the sport enough. But as is well known, the week was marred by Tiger Woods' illness and Jordan Spieth's disqualification for an incorrect scorecard. The good news from an Upper Midwestern perspective is that the one Umcee to make the field--Tom Hoge--not only made the cut but finished solo eighth. The finish lifted him six places to #15 in the FedEx Cup but was only good enough to bump him up one spot (#56 to #55) in the OWGR. Funny how those things work out, I guess.

This week, the West Coast Swing is over after five weeks. It featured five longshot winners, including Matsuyama, who hadn't won since the 2022 Sony Open; two head-to-head situations with LIV Golf; and the last three such events being afflicted by an act of God (Pebble Beach), acts of man (Genesis) and acts of both God and man (Phoenix Open). In its place is a low-key third successive trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for that country's national open. First played in 1944, it became a PGA Tour event in 2022 and was won by then-U.S. Open holder Jon Rahm. Last year, it was won by Tony Finau, who returns to defend his title.

The 132 players in Mexico this week do not include Hoge, who (I assume) is prepping for the next signature event, the Arnold Palmer Invitational next month, held the week before the Players. However, there are three other Umcees involved in the proceedings. Erik van Rooyen and Troy Merritt both return from a week's absence from competition, simply because neither of them qualified for the Genesis. Both are coming off missed cuts in Phoenix, but van Rooyen won last November just across the Sea of Cortez at El Cardonal in Cabo San Lucas, taking the World Wide Technology Championship on behalf of his dying homie and Minnesota Gophers teammate Jon Trasamar. Last year, van Rooyen was attacked by a swarm of bees during the first round of his appearance at this event:

Like van Rooyen, Troy Merritt heads into the Mexico Open off a missed cut at TPC Scottsdale. Unlike EVR, Merritt has had little luck since the Sony Open (deja vu from 2023, anyone?) and may struggle here as well. Lastly, the open qualifier for the Mexico Open was held last week. Four players, including Minnetonka (MN) High School alumnus Ben Sigel, were involved in a playoff for the last three open spots, and Sigel avoided being the odd one out. However he fares, I expect he'll take some positive points away from the experience of playing with the big boys.

There is the possibility of a fourth Umcee in the cards for this week on the other side of the pond. O.J. Farrell is from England but went to the University of Wisconsin, and he is currently 12th alternate for the Challenge Tour's Nelson Mandela Bay Championship in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (co-sanctioned with the Sunshine Tour). This reflects making DP World Tour Q-School finals but failing to make the cut once there. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Anyway, that's all for this week until Sunday, when I plan to release my fifth-round picks for the FA Cup. The next Upper Midwest Connection of the Week will be named within the following few days.

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 11 February 2023

 Another week, another longshot winner on the PGA Tour, as Nick Taylor beat fellow-underdog Charley Hoffman in two playoff holes with five daylight minutes to go in the Phoenix Open, thereby avoiding a Monday finish. It's Taylor's second extra-holes win in less than eight months, having defeated Tommy Fleetwood in four holes to please a home-soil Canadian crowd at the Canadian Open. But Hoffman can't be too grumpy with his finish, as it garnered him enough FedEx Cup points to secure a trip to this week's Genesis Invitational, reduced to seventy or so players from the 120 of recent years as a signature event via the "Swing Five."

That's not what this article is about, of course. It's about the six Umcees who played last week on tour, all on circuits that are part of the PGA Tour pyramid. Four of them--Tom Hoge, Erik van Rooyen, Troy Merritt and Zach Johnson--played the Phoenix Open. The other two--Frankie Capan III and Van Holmgren--both played the Korn Ferry Tour's Astara Bogota Championship. Incidentally, Holmgren was making his KFT debut, having earned conditional status via Q-school last December. So, how did each of these guys do?

Unfortunately for the newbie, it didn't go according to plan. Holmgren missed the Astara cut by six strokes (E). However, FCIII made it with three to spare and eventually tied for 20th (-14). Meanwhile, the Phoenix Open saw a seeming bazillion acts of God that followed from the previous week's Pebble Beach debacle, which meant that van Rooyen saw the weekend, only to miss out on the cut by one stroke (-1/141 after two rounds). Merritt was even worse, and Johnson wasn't much better, though he did pick up a few valuable FedEx Cup points. I was tempted to anoint FCIII the Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, and I might have done so but for our returning UMCOW...

Tom Hoge.

For the first time this year, we have a repeat honoree! Hoge figures to have nailed down Upper Midwest Connection of the Month honours for February, as he again cracked the top 20 in the desert. His final score of -10/274 was good for T17 and lifted him to #56 in the OWGR and #21 in the FedEx Cup. Remember, one of the last categories to be invoked for the Masters Tournament before the "tradition unlike any other" goes down anew is top 50 in the world rankings (such as they are) after the penultimate event preceding the first major of the year. With the tragic passing of the WGC Match Play after last year, this year's checkpoint is the Houston Open.

This week, there won't be an Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, unless Hoge wins the Genesis Invitational. That's because he's the only Umcee in the field for this signature event, and the Korn Ferry Tour is on a fortnightly hiatus between the Astara of Colombia and the Argentine Open. The winner of the Genesis Collegiate Showcase isn't an Umcee, and that event's exemption now doesn't take effect until July's Scottish Open due to this week's signature status.

However, it may be noted in passing that the Mexico Open qualifier took place the other day. As with all open qualifiers for PGA Tour and KFT events held outside the United States, it was held a week early to allow for travel planning in Richmond, Texas. When the dust settled on regulation, five players were among the top four and ties, including Minnetonka (Minnesota) High School alumnus Ben Sigel. However, only Preston Stanley of Katy, Texas made it outright, leaving the other four to contest an odd-man-out playoff. Fortunately, Sigel made it, so expect multiple Umcees to participate in next week's Mexico Open, allowing for honours after the event (provided at least one such player makes the cut, of course).

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 7 February 2024

 Good riddance to multi-course setups! After three straight weeks of only partial shot-level data, we now hit a stretch of PGA Tour full-field events through the Texas Open at the start of April where we can fully grasp how players are doing. (And yes, this includes the Mexican Open. It's one of the few non-U.S. events that has strokes-gained data, along with the Canadian and Scottish Opens.)

But the multiple courses at Pebble Beach comprised only one reason we got only two rounds of advanced stats for the second time in three weeks. The other reason we were so limited, of course, was Mother Nature. Despite being a signature event, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am was cut to 54 holes (three rounds, two on Pebble Beach Links) with an atmospheric river coming in this past Sunday and scuttling play. It didn't even permit a Monday finish, so great was the damage to the links that Wyndham Clark, who had taken the 54-hole lead, was awarded his third win in less than a year. I bet Thomas Detry of Belgium is FUMING right now.

This is why the Pebble Beach Pro-Am was cut short (LA Times).

This seemed a brilliant situation for LIV Golf down in Mayakoba, which itself hosted the World Wide Technology Championship for many years...on the PGA Tour. You know, the event that former Minnesota Gopher Erik van Rooyen won last fall, albeit in Cabo rather than Yucatan. Won by Joaquin Niemann, who led the expansion Legion XIII to victory alongside Jon "Benedict Arnold" Rahm and two others, the LIV opener enjoyed good ratings, but these were still far below the Pebble Beach ratings, even with LIV having Sunday to itself.

So, with all that out of the way, how did the Umcee contingent do across the board? For the most part, I'd say that, considering there were only three Umcees in action last week, it was a good if not great showing. Granted, Frankie Capan III missed his first cut of the Korn Ferry Tour season, dropping to #51 on the points list. But the two Umcees involved at Pebble Beach both finished top-20 (and ties). Van Rooyen finally mustered his first such finish since his WWT win last November anywhere in the world and climbed to #79 in the OWGR. That said, this week's honours go to none other than Tom Hoge, who becomes the first two-time laureate in 2024. Having won on the Monterey Peninsula for what remains his sole triumph on the PGA Tour in 2022, Hoge slogged through a -1/71 at Spyglass Hill (the other course used in the event) before turning on the jets with back-to-back -6/66's on the main links. As usual, his strengths lay in his irons and putter, ranking sixth in strokes gained with the former and eighth with the latter, averaging over 1.5 SG with each category per Pebble Beach Links round.

This week, Troy Merritt will once again seek to reestablish momentum post-Hawai'i, as he hasn't made a cut since the Sony Open. He joins the two Umcees who were at Pebble Beach at TPC Scottsdale near Phoenix for the Super Bowl week tradition that is the Phoenix Open. Additionally, FCIII will look to get back on track in the Andes at the Astara Bogota Championship, and he'll be joined by a fifth Umcee in Van Holmgren. Holmgren was the truest Umcee beneficiary of last year's Q-school, earning a PGA Tour Americas card, but he won't get to use it until next month when the season begins. That he was able to get in, let alone without a sponsor's exemption, speaks to how far he's come.

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Month for January 2024

 The debate over who was the top Upper Midwest connection in January 2024, for me, revolves around one factor above all: consistency. There were four leading contenders for the Upper Midwest Connection of the Month honour, but one is not like the others.

Frankie Capan III made some waves in the Bahamas and passed his cut-making test in both cases, but he failed in Panama last week. Troy Merritt was Upper Midwest Connection of the Week for his Sony Open in Hawai'i efforts, but he hasn't had a payday since. Tom Hoge was more compelling, posting a quality showing at the Amex, but he didn't show up at his other two cut-making events--the Sentry, where a payday is guaranteed to all who finish 72 holes, and the Farmers Insurance Open--and he embarrassingly missed the cut at Waialae. This left one clear-cut winner for the first Upper Midwest Connection of the Month for 2024:

Erik van Rooyen.

The former Minnesota Gopher made all but one cut, and the one he didn't make--the Farmers Insurance Open--was the event he skipped in January, as he had enough points from the FedEx Cup Fall to make it to Pebble Beach last week. Furthermore, van Rooyen has finished inside the top 25 in all but one of his starts, including Pebble Beach (which was not factored in for these purposes, as it took place in February). Currently, EVR sits #79 in the world rankings and #34 in the FedEx Cup after last week. Was it enough to get him Upper Midwest Connection of the Week in addition? Stay tuned.

Edward the Scop