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
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