Matt McCarty and the Pros and Cons of Starting Early

Before the 1997 season, the Nike Tour (as the Korn Ferry Tour was then known) introduced a new rule that any participating golfer who won three times on the circuit in the same season would be promoted to the PGA Tour with immediate effect. Furthermore, all such honorees would have full membership and would be subject to just the next reshuffle for the rest of the year and free from facing them next year. The first beneficiary of this reform was Chris Smith, who that year won the Nike Upstate Classic (now the BMW Charity Pro-Am) in Upstate South Carolina and followed it up later on with consecutive wins at the Dakota Dunes Classic and the Omaha Classic. He earned his card on 10 August 1997 and went on to win the Westchester-Buick Open in 2002.

Twenty-seven years later, Matt McCarty must have sensed that this season would be a year of destiny for his career. Having come up just short last year in the KFT Final Series, the 26-year-old Santa Clara alumnus got off to a decent start before missing four cuts in the first six stateside events. Yet as late as mid-July, he was winless in his pro career, his highest finish being T3. That changed in Springfield, Missouri at the Price Cutter Classic on 21 July. McCarty's winning score of -25 was good for a three-shot win over Tommy Gainey. Three weeks later, McCarty took the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha for win No 2 and then completed the battlefield promotion on 25 August at the Finals-opening Boise Open to earn immediate promotion to the PGA Tour. Because the FedEx Cup Playoffs were going on, the first opportunity to flaunt his membership would be the Procore Championship (formerly the Fortinet Championship), which kicks off the FedEx Cup Fall.

Unless you consider a certain something in the pot of gold at the end of the KFT rainbow. You see, the top graduate (there are now thirty per year) is also eligible for all normal events and free from the reshuffle, and he gets to play both the Players Championship and the U.S. Open. For all his season-long success, McCarty led second-place Max McGreevy (who himself could get promoted immediately by winning next week's KFT Championship, having won both the Memorial Health Championship and the Magnit Championship this year) by fewer than 700 points. After consulting with his connections, McCarty opted to pursue No 1 at season's end, regardless of the costs to his chances of a PGA Tour win.

At the Simmons Bank Open in Nashville the same weekend (9-12 September) as the Procore, McCarty's points-list lead dropped from 687 to 570. This left unfinished business at the following week's Nationwide Children's Hospital Championship in Columbus, Ohio. McCarty would have to outscore McGreevy by thirty points and stay more than 600 ahead of both Steven Fisk and Tim Widing (the only two others capable of chasing him down). Fortunately, Widing missed the cut; Fisk was a non-factor; and McGreevy mustered a measly T23 to McCarty's T5, enabling the promotee to secure top spot, no matter what happens in Larry Bird's hometown.

Which is what led to the field announcements today. The PGA Tour announces its member circuits' fields after 5pm Eastern every Friday before a tournament. As I awaited the field announcements for both the KFT Championship and the main tour's Sanderson Farms Championship, I tried to put myself into McCarty's shoes. The temptation to have guaranteed OWGR points and prize money (which the KFT Championship offers all qualifying players, as it is now a no-cut event) could be overwhelming. Indeed, at the end of the year the top fifty players according to the world ranking get into next year's Masters, so that must've been a consideration. However, the Sanderson Farms Championship will probably offer a bigger OWGR bounty to all who make the cut (to say nothing of a guaranteed spot for the winner at Augusta, let alone Quail Hollow for the PGA Championship) and also a bigger check for any given cut-making finish. While the going can be more difficult on the PGA Tour, then, the rewards are clearly far more lucrative--even during the fall series.

Matt McCarty will make his PGA Tour membership debut at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi (PGA Tour).

As it turned out, McCarty had indeed committed to the Sanderson Farms. It will be his first start as a PGA Tour member, and he is exempt into five of the remaining six events (Black Desert, Shriners, World Wide Technology, Bermuda, RSM) as well. The only exception is the Zozo Championship in Japan, which is reserved for top-performing PGA Tour members on the FedEx Cup season as well as select Japan Golf Tour members. Good luck to Matt McCarty on the next step in his journey!

Edward the Scop

Memorial Tournament et al. Recap and Weekly Preview

Last week saw some Umcee noise...but not from the places you'd expect.

At the Memorial Tournament in the Columbus, Ohio suburb of Dublin, Scottie Scheffler won his fifth event in eight starts. Much of the drama, then, centred around how he held on to win, rather than that he won again, in that he was forced to par the last hole to prevent a playoff against Collin Morikawa. As is recent tradition, the Memorial is also an Open Qualifying Series event, awarding exempt places in the Open Championship every year. Or, this year, a place since, due to the reworking of the tournament as a signature event (in part against Jack Nicklaus' wishes, as Muirfield Village is AKA Jack's Place) there were just 73 entrants.

(USA Today/PGA Tour)

Only one of the limited field's threescore and a baker's dozen was an Umcee. Tom Hoge, who qualified for every signature event this year by virtue of reaching last year's BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, started out brightly, but he collapsed during the weekend, struggling to avoid needing 300 strokes on the par-72 course (+10/298) over four days. He finished T45, but he at least cracked the top sixty--hell, the top forty-five--for the first time at Jack's Place, albeit against a reduced field.

And with Hoge's endeavours, the Memorial had an Umcee make the cut. The same can't be said of the Korn Ferry Tour's BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greer, South Carolina. Given the format, scoring was bound to be low, and this reflected in a cutline of -5/138 after two days on two courses--one par-72, the other par-71. It was an eminently forgettable week for both Umcees involved, to say the least. With Frankie Capan III taking the week off to prep for the U.S. Open, AKA the masochist's major, a wipeout might have been expected. Sure enough, Van Holmgren missed the cut by five strokes (even par), but Andre Metzger, who is prominent on the Dakotas Tour, was far worse. He went +9/152 in his two rounds! That does NOT cut it at a pro-am tournament, regardless of the level of competition!!!

Add to this O.J. Farrell (former Wisconsin Badger) MCing on the Clutch Pro Tour in England and heading into Saturday, it didn't look good for any big time moving up by Umcees anywhere in the world. That changed when Kim Kaufman started to kick ass at the Firecrackers Casino-Hotel Championship in Battle Creek, Michigan, AKA the home of Kellogg's cereals, on the Epson Tour. Kaufman was a modest even-par 72 heading to Saturday, which wasn't going to move her up in the Race for the Card, period. But then she went under par in the difficult conditions and was T15 heading to the final round Sunday. She then matched her -1/71 from the day before and moved up to T8 at the last for a check of $4379. Moreover, the R4C points she earned moved her to fifth on the list. It increasingly looks like a return to the LPGA Tour in 2025 awaits Kaufman.

This week, of course, is dominated by the U.S. Open. In addition to Hoge, who qualified by a top-60 placement in the world rankings after the PGA Championship last month, former Minnesota Gopher Erik van Rooyen was automatically exempt as one of the top five "leftovers," according to the FedEx Cup. Furthermore, three other Umcees qualified for the event on their own. As mentioned in the post I linked, Capan qualified as the Durham, North Carolina medallist, while Carson Schaake earned his way via Springfield, Ohio. Finally, Gunnar Broin, who will be a grad student at Kansas in the fall, held on to a place via a 4-for-3 playoff. Though as it turns out, he would've been granted a place if he'd been the odd one out, as this week's OWGR top sixty added just two--Bob MacIntyre of Scotland, who won the Canadian Open earlier this month, and Australia's Adam Scott, whose 92nd successive major appearance should come with an apology to the loved ones of Grayson Murray. This left four places for alternates, and the Columbus first alternate got in. There are currently twenty alternates on the USGA's master list, eight of whom are first alternates. The remaining twelve, of course, are all the second alternates except for Springfield, Ohio. That's because Maxwell Moldovan moved into first alternate after Scott's exemption, allowing him relative dibs.

Among other events, the Wichita Open once more sees Metzger take on a field of 156, and Iowa native Charles Jahn will be there, too. However, Holmgren will sit this one out. The Epson Tour also rolls on into Columbus, Indiana, home of the Otter Creek Championship. Kaufman and Kate Smith-Stroh, who missed last week's cut by two strokes, will tee it up as of Monday night, while Emily Lauterbach, coming off a failed attempt to qualify for a second LPGA Tour start this year, is fourth alternate. Over in England, Farrell will try to pick up the pieces from another missed cut at the Manor House on the Clutch Tour.

Lastly, the final Q-school session for the PGA Tour Americas' North American segment tees off tomorrow. Former Gopher Angus Flanagan will try to get back his status on the pyramid, and he'll be joined by Ben Sigel, the Minnetonka High School alumnus who preceded Broin at KU. The top nine finishers (no ties, which must be broken by playoffs if needed) will be exempt, and the rest of the top 25 and ties will be conditionally exempt in a rotation among the six sites and the finishers on the Latin American segment outside the top sixty.

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 2 June 2024

 For the first time since adding the televote for Upper Midwest Connection of the Week on my YouTube channel, we have a tie in the results. Of the votes that were submitted, half went to Erik van Rooyen based on his T42 performance at the RBC Canadian Open and half to Kim Kaufman for her T58 at the U.S. Women's Open, the second major of the women's golf year. In the end, the jury (me) has decided to break the tie, and the winner by decision is...

Kim Kaufman.

She won't get Upper Midwest Connection of the Month honours, but she had her best finish in a women's major in seven years to earn weekly plaudits. As I mentioned in my weekly recap Tuesday, her payout of over $23 000 was about half of what she's earned on the Epson Tour, which is the women's equivalent of the Korn Ferry Tour. She also cracked the top 500 of the Rolex Rankings, the women's version of the OWGR. Making the cut at the Tartarus that was Lancaster Country Club will give Kaufman confidence as she seeks a return to the LPGA Tour in 2025, either via the Epson Tour Race for the Card or LPGA Q-Series. (Too bad that U.S. Women's Open performance doesn't count toward the Race for the Card, as far as I know, unlike the men's version counting toward KFT graduation progress.)

This week is the Memorial Tournament at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, AKA Jack's Place. Only one Umcee, Tom Hoge, made the event, and he has an opportunity to seal a trip to the Open via the Open Qualifying Series. In contrast to previous years, when multiple tickets were punched at the event, the signature status of this year's edition means a reduced field (73 at last count) and, with it, a reduction of exemptions to one.

On the developmental tours, the Korn Ferry Tour holds its BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greer, South Carolina. Although Frankie Capan III is taking the week off, the field still includes two Umcees in Van Holmgren and Andre Metzger. Lastly, the Epson Tour holds an event for the first time since Memorial Day weekend, as the Firekeepers Hotel-Casino Championship takes over Battle Creek, Michigan. Unlike most early-season events on that tour, the field size is sufficient such that Emily Lauterbach of Hartfield, Wisconsin is able to join the fray, which also Kate Smith-Stroh. Smith-Stroh has struggled this year generally, so a good result here could kickstart her season. However, Kaufman is taking a well-deserved break after making the cut as mentioned above.

One more note: The Clutch Pro Tour, which feeds into the Challenge Tour--the DP World Tour's developmental arm--is underway in its second season but first with OWGR points. One of its regulars is former Wisconsin Badger O.J. Farrell, who made European Q-School finals last year but missed the 72-hole cut. So far, he ranks 33rd on the Clutch Order of Merit.

Edward the Scop

Q-School Sneak Peek 2024

 Yesterday, 4 June, the application for PGA Tour Q-School dropped. As in previous years (including 2013-19, 2021 and 2022, when Q-school only granted Korn Ferry Tour privileges at best), there are set criteria for byes to the last three stages. This post concerns differences between this year's exemption criteria and last year's, as well as changes to the incentives for various finishes at Q-school. While most of them stayed the same, there were some differences enacted this year.

PGA Tour University

As with last year, four of the top five college seniors (excluding No 1 Christo Lamprecht of Georgia Tech, who is exempt on the PGA Tour through next year on that count, a la Ludvig Aberg a year ago) according to this program's rankings will be exempt to Final Stage, again held at the Sawgrass golf complex in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida near PGA Tour headquarters. The difference lies in Second Stage, where an additional six college graduates will participate if not exempt to Final Stage otherwise. Those six are Nos 21-25 on the final ranking and the NCAA Division II Jack Nicklaus Award winner. Last year, only Nos 6-20 were exempt to Second Stage, no matter what. The two years before at KFT Q-School, spots were limited to Nos 6-15, and the top finisher was only awarded KFT membership for the rest of the year and Final Stage exemption if needed. This evolution, to me, represents the growing importance of college golf. Surely my interest has grown!

PGA Tour Americas

This tour, of course, represents the merger of the PGA Tour pyramid's two lesser developmental circuits after last year. Instead of the top five on each circuit being exempt to Q-school finals and the rest of both top 25s being exempt to Second Stage, the top two on the Latin American segment (Canada's Matthew Anderson and New Zealand's Harry Hillier) will join with the top three on the North American segment in being exempt to Final Stage. Of course, those who finish in the top ten are promoted to the Korn Ferry Tour for 2025, whereas their high-finishing predecessors only received conditional KFT status without Q-school. The remaining top ten from each segment will be exempt to Second Stage, but only the combined list of top-25 finishers on the year will be used for the tour's remaining Second Stage exemptions. In the last two years of KFT Q-School, the top ten on each of the two tours that combined to form the PGA Tour Americas this year got into Final Stage. I guess restoring PGA Tour cards had consequences down the pyramid. Speaking of which...

At the End of the Q-School Rainbow

An additional $6000 will be distributed to each of Nos 41-45 at the end of Final Stage, ostensibly due to the fact that at least 45 will earn PGA Tour or KFT membership. Last year, only forty top finishers were to be paid, although 41 earned a check for their efforts. Of the more substantive rewards, PGA Tour cards are still limited to the top five and ties. The next forty and ties will still receive KFT starts, and these will still be broken down such that the top 25 and ties among those receive two reprieves from the reshuffle and the rest one. The remaining participants at Final Stage who post 72 holes' scores will earn some PGA Tour Americas membership.

The main difference is, again, in Second Stage. Again, all medallists at Second Stage (including ties) will receive KFT membership with one reprieve from the reshuffle. But those who come oh-so-close but fall short of Final Stage still have some reason to hope for starts on the PGA Tour Americas, as the top ten and ties among those not advancing to Final Stage from each site will receive conditional status on the Latin American segment in 2025. Of course, with fifty or more such consolations, it may be difficult for some to be allotted starts, especially with First Stage medallists having full exemption to the segment.

I hope this post helps you understand the evolution of Q-school from last year to this year. Who knows what next year's Q-school will look like?

Edward the Scop

Umcee Success Stories on the Longest Day of Golf

 As mentioned in my last post, the "Longest Day in Golf" went down yesterday. Ten of the thirteen final qualifying sites, each a 36-hole test sending a given number of top finishers to the U.S. Open, contributed 44 places in this year's event at Pinehurst No 2 in North Carolina. Among those trying their luck at a spot were numerous Umcees. While not all qualified or earned alternate places (each site designates two), three earned their way into the season's penultimate men's major and its most masochistic, just as last week's women's edition was for women's golf. Below, I provide a recap of the three.

Frankie Capan III won his U.S. Open qualifier (St Paul Pioneer Press).

Frankie Capan III (Duke University Golf Club, Durham, NC, medallist, -6/134)

Capan was the most impressive of the three Umcees who qualified via open qualifying (as opposed to exemptions). He was already exempt from local qualifying due to his top-500 OWGR standing at the time of application that he has maintained. FCIII beat Brian Campbell and former U.S. Amateur Sam Bennett to win the medal by one stroke, and Chesson Hadley and Webb Simpson qualified without any questions as well. That left two places to be determined among seven players, along with both alternate places, in a sudden-death playoff. Carter Jenkins and Harry Higgs--the latter of whom beat Capan in another playoff at the Korn Ferry Tour's Visit Knoxville Open--prevailed, while Spencer Oxendine and Matt McCarty were first and second alternates, respectively.

Gunnar Broin (amateur, Ohio State University Golf Club, Scarlet Course, Columbus, OH, 4-way T3 and won in odd-one-out playoff, -9/133)

The sole amateur on the list, Broin just completed his fourth year at the University of Kansas and is intending to play one more season of college golf before turning pro. He missed out on the medallist honours by one stroke, as Justin Lower and Seamus Power shared them at -10. Since there were only five places available and he was in a four-way tie for third, Broin had to undergo a playoff, whose loser would be first alternate. As it turned out, he did just enough to make Pinehurst, along with Brendon Todd and Chris Naegel, while Otto Black missed out. In a separate, seven-way playoff, Joshua Lee won second-alternate status.

Carson Schaake (Springfield Country Club, Springfield, OH, T2, -8/132)

The third and final Umcee to qualify tied for second with Beau Hossler. Only Zac Blair beat them, finishing -9. Schaake sealed his trip to Pinehurst with a birdie on No 17, enabling him to avoid a playoff with Aussie stars Cam Davis and Adam Scott. (Even now, I can't believe that neither has qualified his way into the U.S. Open!) As it is, both went to one, and it made headlines. Scott failed to match Davis' second playoff hole birdie, putting his streak of 91 straight major appearances in jeopardy. Equally heartbreaking--even more so from an Upper Midwest perspective--though not totally unexpected was Troy Merritt's loss to Maxwell Moldovan of Ohio St in a playoff for second alternate. Otherwise, I would have given Merritt an honourable mention.

One more thing: Speaking of qualifiers, PGA Tour Q-School applications dropped today, so in a post later this week, I will be examining the differences (if any) between Q-school last year and this year. For now, look for me to announce the Upper Midwest Connection of the Week tomorrow (5 June).

Canadian Open et al. Recap

 I was going to post yesterday about this past weekend's tour action, as well as about the U.S. Women's Open. But as you know if you're a true golf fan, yesterday was the "longest day in golf," in which ten 36-hole qualifiers for 44 spots at the 2024 U.S. (men's) Open at Pinehurst No 2 in North Carolina took place. Following that when I wasn't at work, needless to say, took the utmost precedence, and I had to put off writing this as a result. Don't worry, I'll get to yesterday's action in my next post.

Anyway, we start with the second major of the women's golf season, held in Pennsylvania German country at Lancaster Country Club in Pennsylvania. The Amish must have prayed a sort of divine curse upon the course, as even by USGA tourney standards, the event was nothing short of masochistic. When the course's bloodlust was sated, Yuka Saso of Japan and her countrywoman Hinako Shibuno were the only two under par (-4 and -1, respectively). Saso now has two Semple Trophies, adding to her 2021 victory...representing the Philippines. That's right, Saso is the first-ever repeat offender at the U.S. Women's Open to be a heroine of two lands.

The sole Umcee at the event was Kim Kaufman of Clark, South Dakota. Having won her qualifier in Arizona, she started slowly with a round of +6/76 but improved to +2/72 Friday to make the cut on the number. She then had her best round Saturday, an even-par 70, before falling back with a +6/76. Despite her mediocre finish, Kaufman earned over $23K, about half of what she's made on the Epson Tour so far as she tries to gain back her LPGA Tour card.

The drama, though, was at the Canadian Open, where Scotsman Robert MacIntyre edged out Ben Griffin to claim his first PGA Tour win. It looked uncertain Sunday when Mackenzie Hughes, who is from Hamilton, Ontario--where the event was held this year--took a share of the lead with MacIntyre struggling. But Hughes fell back and finished a disappointing -10. MacIntyre then rebounded, only to suffer consecutive bogeys at 12 and 13, while Rory McIlroy surged alongside Tom Kim. Both eventually finished -13. Victor Perez of France finished -14 as MacIntyre and Griffin approached the final hole with Griffin at -15 after three straight birdies and his playing partner at -16. Fortunately for the Scotsman, he landed his approach on the green, while Griffin missed to the left. Griffin tried an off-the-green putt to tie it but came up short, enabling MacIntyre to two-putt for the win.

Before I get to my Umcee breakdown, I should note that the Canadian Open, as an Open Qualifying Series Event, got three top finishers who weren't otherwise exempt into the Open Championship next month. Griffin and Hughes joined Maverick McNealy in earning their way via this conduit.

Three Umcees were in action. With Tom Hoge skipping ahead to this week's Memorial Tournament (which is a signature event), Erik van Rooyen, Troy Merritt and Zach Johnson competed in Hamilton. The latter two missed the cut, and van Rooyen, despite a strong first-round -4/66, cooled off afterward to back-to-back even par rounds before struggling with a final-round +3/73.

Lastly, the Korn Ferry Tour's UNC Hospital Championship was in action, and like the U.S. Women's Open, it was won by a Japanese in Kaito Onishi. As for the Umcee contingent, Frankie Capan III, Van Holmgren and Andre Metzger played there. Unfortunately, only FCIII made the cut, and he generally struggled, finishing over par for the week and not really showing up. That's why he wasn't in the best of the week televote on my YouTube channel. He's still #8 on the KFT points list.

My next post concerns the U.S. Open qualifying action yesterday, 3 June 2024.

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 26 May 2024

 Although all five Umcees made the cut at their respective events, three--Troy Merritt and Zach Johnson at the Charles Schwab Challenge and Van Holmgren at the KFT Visit Knoxville Open--may be safely removed from the board as a result of their poor performances after making the weekend. That left two of them for this week's poll.

For the second straight week, the televote was overridden by the expert jury. I received two votes, and both went to Tom Hoge, who won the honours last week after a good performance at the PGA Championship. However, I don't see how a tie for 17th, as much as that matches his personal best at the Schwab Challenge, lifts Hoge to Upper Midwest Connection of the Week. Not when the Visit Knoxville Open went to a sudden-death, two-hole playoff involving...

(PGA Tour/Korn Ferry Tour)

Frankie Capan III.

Heading into Sunday's final round, FCIII had a one-stroke lead. The North Oaks, Minnesota product has never won an OWGR-sanctioned event but already had matched his top-ten finish total coming into the week with three on the season. Capan, though, was charged down by Harry Higgs, who is a former PGA Tour member seeking to get back his card. Higgs came to the final hole leading by one himself until FCIII birdied the last and Higgs settled for par, triggering a playoff.

Normally a birdie-birdie playoff showing would hand a given player the win, but on the second hole of the playoff--both holes were replays of No 18--Higgs drilled a 37-foot eagle putt for the win and Capan missed his from a third of the distance by seventeen inches. Even so, FCIII got to reap great rewards in his own right with 300 KFT points, lifting him to within some reach of the PGA Tour at #7 on the points list, as he is closing in on 700 total. (Higgs, along with Swedish hotshot Tim Widing, already is thought to have enough points to graduate back to the big Tour with over 1100 so far.) Furthermore, Capan jumped to #172 in the OWGR.

This week's action revolves around two foci. On the men's side, the big event is the RBC Canadian Open. Hoge won't be playing the event, but the other two Umcees from last week's Schwab Challenge will be joined by the well-rested Erik van Rooyen, who tied for 20th at the exact same course in Hamilton, Ontario five years ago. Of course, the place has since undergone a renovation, so course history may not be that relevant for handicapping. There are multiple extra incentives for success. Firstly, the Presidents Cup is being held at Royal Montreal this fall; and as an International Team-eligible player, van Rooyen will want to impress Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters champ who hails from Canada and is captaining the team, this week. Secondly, the Canadian Open is an Open Qualifying Series event, which means that a certain number of top finishers who aren't otherwise exempt get into next month's 152nd Open at Royal Troon in Scotland. In this case, three spots are available; and unlike previous OQS stops, this and subsequent such events fall after the deadline for Open entries (30 May this year), so the bids are nontransferable. 

Meanwhile, the Korn Ferry Tour features three more Umcees, as Capan and Holmgren are joined for once by conditional member Andre Metzger. Metzger is legendary on the Dakotas Tour, which is one of my favourite minitours in golf. Not only does it conduct events in the Upper Midwest (except Wisconsin), but it partners with locals to quarter cash-strapped players and distributes prize money with great efficiency. Anyway, Metzger makes some residence in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, especially during the Dakotas Tour season.

As for women's golf, the U.S. Women's Open goes down at Lancaster Country Club in the Pennsylvania Deutsch Country (and yes, the Amish historically spoke German, not Dutch--hence the spelling). Earlier in the spring, Kim Kaufman of Clark, South Dakota won an open qualifier to make this women's major, giving her a playing opportunity while the Epson Tour is on another hiatus. At some point during the tournament or afterward, I might also comment on Lexi Thompson's retirement, which she announced at the event this week.

Facere pro Qui Non Possunt.

Edward the Scop

Post 100: Charles Schwab Challenge and Other Events Recap

 Lost amid the tragic backdrop at Colonial National was the actual playing of golf. But at the Devilish Rake, the show must go on, and this past week's events followed that rule, at times magnificently. I mentioned in the above-linked post that most felt it's what Grayson Murray would have wanted.

Anyway, just like last week's PGA Championship, this week's Charles Schwab Challenge featured three Umcees. While Erik van Rooyen sat out an event at which he's never done well (0-for-3 in cuts made), Troy Merritt and Zach Johnson came back to action after missing out on the season's second major. All three made the cut, but Merritt and Johnson both finished +2/282 for the week. Johnson had an especially ugly final round, carding +3/73 to lose four places in the FedEx Cup. He is teetering closer to the threshold for so much as conditional status retention, as it's clear his day has come and gone. Merritt is in a somewhat more favourable position, but he is also on track to fall to the conditional category, slipping a place in the list.

Tom Hoge, though, saved his best for last. After struggling in the odd rounds (with a -1/69 in between Friday), he showed up to finish under par (-2/278 overall, -3/67 Sunday). Hoge only suffered one bogey Sunday, and his efforts propelled him to #20 in the FedEx Cup and #59 in the OWGR. While the latter wasn't good enough to make it to the Open Championship yet, there is still time for him to secure his place at Royal Troon this July.

While the Schwab Challenge was won comfortably by Davis Riley, who polished off Scottie Scheffler and Keegan Bradley by five shots each (-14/266), there was considerable drama on the Korn Ferry Tour at the Visit Knoxville Open. Last week's people's choice as Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, Van Holmgren, made the cut for the second straight week but stumbled with a +3/73 final round, tying him for dead last among the 75 who made the cut in Knoxville, Tennessee. At the other extreme was Frankie Capan III. After a phenomenal -8/62 third round Saturday, FCIII matched veteran Harry Higgs' -19/261 regulation finish with a birdie at the last, followed by two more at No 18 in the playoff. Which would have won Capan his first KFT title...except Higgs sank a 37-foot eagle putt on the last playing of the hole to win by one. Even so, Capan is up to seventh on the KFT points list and is arithmetically on track to be PGA Tour-bound by the time the KFT finals roll around in the fall. He also has a personal-best four top-ten finishes on tour, and even in playoff defeat, this is his best KFT finish ever.

I will ask it again: Whom do you think was the best Upper Midwest connection of the past week in tour golf? I pose this question again to both this blog and YouTube, so answer away!

Edward the Scop

Facere pro Qui Non Possunt

Grayson Murray, 1993-2024

C.W.: Suicide references 

Normally a week like this, what with the PGA Championship the week before, would be pretty quiet. Many bigwigs take off a week or two before the next high-profile event or otherwise opting to make another start. However, this week's quiet was broken by nothing short of a tragedy--and I don't mean my Wolves blowing Game 2 of the conference finals against the Mavs.

May he rest in peace, and may his memory be a blessing.

On Friday, Grayson Murray WD from the Colonial National Invitation, known for sponsorship reasons as the Charles Schwab Challenge, after three consecutive bogeys. Despite these those struggles, Murray could still have made the weekend, it turned out, by going -1 the last two holes. Instead, he said he was sick and quit. But nothing could have prepared anybody--not his fellow-players, not the fans in the stands, not the T.V. audiences around the world, not the PGA Tour itself and definitely not his family and fiancée--for what was to befall them. The next morning, Murray was found dead, and the day after, his parents confirmed he had committed suicide.

The news hit like a thousand sledgehammers falling randomly from the sky. The percussion track in the usual theme for CBS' coverage was suppressed at the weekend as soon as they came on the air to broadcast the action Saturday out of reverence for Murray. This was just four and a half months after he had won the Sony Open in Hawai'i--his second win on the Tour and first full-point victory. Just a month and a half after his Masters debut, where he made the cut. Just a week or so after making the PGA Championship cut and less than that after securing an exemption to the U.S. Open. And just weeks before he was to marry the love of his life.

I mentioned on a community post on my YouTube channel, which is a companion to this blog, that Grayson Murray suffered depression; and as one with depression myself, I have sought to live life as I am able. There are good days and bad days with the condition, so I could relate to Grayson's struggles in a way, even though I never knew the guy on any personal level.

Back at Colonial National came the outpouring of tears. Valspar Championship winner Peter Malnati, in particular, sobbed during his interview with Amanda Balionis of CBS. Webb Simpson, who knew Grayson from his junior days in North Carolina and early university days at Wake Forest, was also moved to emotion greatly. Jay Monahan personally flew into DFW to be with the players. Meanwhile, on the Korn Ferry Tour, Harry Higgs--himself trying to get back to the PGA Tour, in which endeavour he should succeed--dedicated his two-hole playoff win to Grayson's memory. By the time Davis Riley polished off a fairly high-profile field including top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, no prize money, no FedEx Cup points, no silly little trophy (or not-so-little trophy) or tartan jacket or 1975 Schwab roadster could take away the meaning of this tragedy. Sports success comes and goes, but the loss of a human life is forever.

In conclusion, I commend Grayson on his honesty in terms of his depression and alcoholism. In a sport that trolls its practitioners for length of days like none other, his vulnerability is to be remembered and honoured. Perhaps this quality, above all his ability as a golfer, is why they dared play on at the Schwab Challenge. It has also led me to coin a Latin motto for the Devilish Rake: Facere pro qui non possunt. To do for those who can't. That, I feel, will be Grayson's lasting legacy, long after the players, organizers and broadcasters move on, long after Grayson's parents bury him, long after his premaritally widowed fiancée (hopefully) finds someone new to love. Remember Grayson Murray.

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 19 May 2024

 Having started a YouTube channel affiliated with this blog, I recently got clearance to add community posts, including polls. To that end, I decided to run a viewer/reader poll on people's opinion of who should be crowned Upper Midwest Connection of the Week. Although the poll is still running, I decided to cut off consideration for the "people's choice" alongside my own opinion.

Since YouTube limits polls to five choices but more than four Umcees made the cut at their respective tournaments (at least seven did), I took a representative sample of Umcees, basing my selections on the principle of one per event. In the end, Tom Hoge at the PGA Championship, Van Holmgren at the Korn Ferry Tour's AdventHealth Championship, Kim Kaufman at the Epson Tour's Copper Rock Championship and Thomas Longbella at the PGA Tour Americas' Inter Rapidisimo Golf Championship made the poll. By popular vote (if one vote counts as such, since that's how many I got), Van Holmgren was people's choice for the week. To his credit, unlike the other three finalists, Holmgren lacks full membership on the tour he primarily plays on these days but made the cut and finished in the top twenty and ties. This sufficed to get him into this week's Visit Knoxville Open in Tennessee, which is the third event in this reshuffle period. After next week's UNC Health Championship in Raleigh, North Carolina, the reshuffle falls again, and players will be ordered for priority reasons according to their points-list position. Holmgren is in a very good position to get more starts on the Korn Ferry Tour this year.

However, this is a time when expert or semi-expert opinions trump those of the crowd. See, I don't even consider Holmgren's performance the second-best of the week in tour golf. Two golfers from the Dakotas top my list. Kaufman had the better rank and moved up in the Epson Tour's Race for the Card with her simple T10, but given that she played just three rounds (the length of most Epson Tour events), she just loses out to...

Tom Hoge finished T23 at Valhalla (Fargo Forum).

Tom Hoge.

Hoge has made the cut at every PGA Championship since Harding Park 2020, and this year fit the bill as well. His finish of three-way T23 at Valhalla Golf Club was his second-best major finish ever only to a T9 at Southern Hills in 2022, also at the PGA Championship. He moved up to #21 in the FedEx Cup, and his OWGR remained at the minimum #60 to enter the U.S. Open, no qualifiers needed.

Speaking of U.S. Open qualifiers, another Umcee, Erik van Rooyen, secured his exemption straight to the event at Pinehurst as the fifth-leading FedEx Cup placement among those not yet exempt by any other category, including world rankings, after the PGA Championship. His T53 at Valhalla got him 10 FedEx Cup points, which enabled him to edge out Patrick Rodgers by about six points for the final spot for now.

Anyway, this week's action revolves mostly around the PGA and Korn Ferry tours. The Inter Rapidisimo wrapped up the Latin American Swing on the PGA Tour Americas, and a series of Q-school events follow to help fill fields for the North American (mostly Canadian with one U.S. event) Swing. As for the Epson Tour, it has the rest of the month off, both for Memorial Day and the week of the U.S. Women's Open, two weeks before the men's version (Kaufman did qualify for the former). Three Umcees--Hoge will be joined by Troy Merritt and Zach Johnson, both of whom are struggling to keep PGA Tour membership--will contest the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial National in Fort Worth, Texas. The aforementioned Visit Knoxville Open involves two more, as Holmgren is joined by Frankie Capan III, who missed the cut last week but remains in the top 30 of the KFT points list. The only other Umcee of note is O.J. Farrell, former Wisconsin Badger, who is on the Clutch Pro Tour in his native England. Farrell competed in European Q-school last winter but missed the 72-hole (out of 108 holes) cut, losing access to DP World Tour events and having few opportunities to play the Challenge Tour.

Edward the Scop

PGA Championship Week Part II: Upper Midwest Connections

 For those coming to the Devilish Rake blog via my YouTube channel, one of the quirky topics I cover is connections to the Upper Midwest. There is a glossary on the blog defining the region and what constitutes a connection to it.

Anyway, the PGA Championship had three Upper Midwest connections, often abbreviated at "Umcees." Tom Hoge, Erik van Rooyen and club pro Ben Polland--the latter this year's PGA club-pro champion--were present at Valhalla in Louisville. Polland, despite his credentials, missed the cut by one stroke with a bogey to close his second round on even par overall. However, the two Umcee tour pros--Hoge is from Fargo, North Dakota, and EVR went to the U. of Minnesota--both made it with room to spare against the -1/141 cut. Van Rooyen eventually finished -5/279, going even-par or better his last three rounds to finish T53 and gain just enough FedEx Cup points to qualify for next month's U.S. Open (per the "top five players not otherwise exempt in the FedEx Cup standings" criterion). Meanwhile, Hoge secured a T23 with a final score of -10/274, doing well enough to clear the OWGR threshold (top sixty after the PGA Championship).

While no major is run by any tour, the PGA Tour (along with the DP World and Japan Golf tours) includes all four majors as part of its calendar. Hence, it is prudent to go through the tour pyramid and scour for Umcees who made the cut. The circuit immediately below the PGA Tour is currently known for sponsorship purposes as the Korn Ferry Tour, and this past week's Advent Health Championship in the Kansas Cities featured two Umcees--Frankie Capan III of North Oaks, Minnesota, who enjoys full KFT membership; and Van Holmgren of Plymouth, Minnesota, who achieved conditional membership via Q-school last fall and slotted well thanks to his performance at the Argentina Open back in February. FCIII missed the cut (badly), but Holmgren made it on -4 through two rounds and threatened to break through before settling for T20. He still climbed into the OWGR top thousand.

On the women's side, there are no Umcees on the LPGA Tour, but the developmental Epson Tour has a couple of them. Kate Stroh (nee Smith) of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota finished 19th in the Race for the Card, which is pretty good for a second-year pro. But she has stumbled so far this year, making the cut just twice, and that didn't change this week at the Copper Rock Championship in Tucson. On the other hand, Clark, South Dakota native Kim Kaufman, who played on the LPGA Tour as late as 2021, tied for tenth in the 54-hole event with a cut, posting consecutive -3/69 rounds to earn $5234 and jump to seventh in this year's R4C. It looks at this point like she'll be back on the big tour next year, as the top fifteen R4C finishers will earn LPGA Tour status.

Finally, five Umcees--Thomas Longbella, George Kneiser, Derek Hitchner, Sam Anderson and Matthew Walker--were involved in the Inter Rapidisimo Championship in Bogota, Colombia on the PGA Tour Americas. None of the four impressed in the end, but three of them did make the cut. Longbella and Hitchner--the latter of whom went to the Blake School for high school near the Twin Cities--both finished -5/283 for the week. Kneiser, who hails from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, showed promise but fell apart at the weekend. Anderson (homegrown Wisconsin Badgers alumnus) and Walker both missed the cut. At the end of the Latin American phase, Longbella didn't do quite well enough to get even conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour yet, but he is fifth in the Fortinet Cup, and the current top five will receive exemptions into four Latin American KFT events next year: the Panama Championship, the Astara Championship in Colombia, the Argentina Open and the Astara Chile Classic. Anderson also finished the Latin American swing in the top ten. Hence, he and Longbella are on track to receive KFT cards in 2025.

Whom do you think was the Upper Midwest Connection of the Week this past week? Offer up your opinion in the comments, whether on Blogger or on YouTube.

Edward the Scop

PGA Championship Week Recap (etc.) Part I: How Did LIV Golfers Fare?

 In the Norse tradition, Valhalla is the place where heroes go when they die in combat. But there is another, IRL Valhalla in Louisville, Kentucky, and it's just hosted its fourth PGA Championship.

No, we didn't see Rory McIlroy end his major drought dating to the 2015 Masters. No, Jordan Spieth didn't complete the career grand slam. And no, Scottie Scheffler wasn't able to keep alive his Scottie Season Slam hopes. He did, however, get clapped into jail for not cooperating with the cops at a traffic stop after a poor fan had been killed in a car crash. This led to a third day of split tees, which you normally don't see at majors.

We also saw yet another dramatic finish on the premises. In 1996, Mark Brooks nipped local boy Kenny Perry in a one-hole, sudden-death playoff. In 2000, Tiger Woods caught Bob May and effectively beat him with his birdie on the first hole of what was now a mandatory three-hole aggregate playoff. In 2014, Rory McIlroy won the PGA Championship as fast fell the eventide by one stroke over Phil Mickelson. And just today, 19 May 2024, we saw Xander Schauffele launch the first-ever season Golden Slam bid (and add to his career one) by responding to LIV founding member Bryson DeChambeau's closing birdie with one of his own from just outside 6' to set a new scoring record for men's majors against par (-21/263).

I mentioned LIV Golf. What you see here is a grid of what I call "expectations versus reality." Since the majors are the only events at which LIV golfers compete against PGA Tour loyalists these days, I decided to compare the proportional performances of the various LIV contingents at the majors since the start of last year to assess their "real" performances when the size of the field and its nature (club pros and amateurs excluded who are not otherwise exempt to the majors) are taken into account. In other words, I'm sort of making like Phil Steele, except for professional tour golf.

The "LIV" column is simply the number of members of LIV Golf at each major. The "aField" column is the total field size minus any amateurs (Masters, U.S. Open, Open Championship) or not-otherwise-exempt club pros (PGA Championship). I say "not otherwise exempt" because of the case of such guys like Michael Block, who placed in the top fifteen and ties at last year's PGA Championship, so he didn't need to play the PGA Professional Championship to get in (he did anyway but finished outside the top twenty). The "tField" column is simply the total number of golfers--tour pros, club pros and amateurs--who are competing in that major.

"aProp" refers to the proportion of LIV golfers among those covered in the "aField." "tProp" is the overall proportion of LIV golfers in the field. As you can tell, there has been a slight decline in the proportions due to the lack of OWGR points for LIV golfers. In general, the largest percentages of LIV membership at each major have been correlated with the Masters Tournament and the PGA Championship. This may be because the first category for exemption to each of those majors is simply having won the event in the past, no questions asked. This year's contingent at Valhalla may also have benefited numerically from further defections to LIV among the OWGR top 100 (Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton, Adrian Meronk), a good performance among last year's contingent (especially winner Brooks Koepka) and special invitations extended to members outside the top 100 (Talor Gooch comes to mind). While the jury is still out on the last two majors of this year, last year's "open" majors had much lower percentages of LIV members. This may stem, in part, from restrictions on past champions (such as the USGA's ten-year limit and the R&A's age-sixty, soon to be age-55, limit).

The three columns with the letters "NY" revolve around the number of golfers invited to the following edition of that particular major by virtue of a top finish. For the open majors, one must finish in the top ten and ties to be automatically invited next year if not otherwise exempt. For the Masters Tournament, it's top twelve and ties. For the PGA Championship, it's fifteen and ties. The column "xNY" multiplies the original "NY" column by "tProp" to ascertain the number of expected LIV golfers among the top finishers. This year, seventeen overall players finished among the top fifteen and ties. Of these, two--DeChambeau and South Africa's Dean Burmester--are affiliated with LIV Golf. The latter number is noted under "lNY," which indicates the actual LIV membership among the top finishers.

The last three columns are marked "T4." These refer to the number of top-four finishers at a given major. The original column is, again, multiplied by "tProp" to derive "xT4." As with "xNY," "xT4" is the expected total of golfers in that range. I track this because the three majors other than the Masters send their top-four finishers to next year's Masters, no matter what. This year's PGA "lT4" came up with one LIV member, Bryson DeChambeau. Not as though he needs the exemption because he won the 2020 U.S. Open, which gives him Masters access through next year. After that, though, it'll matter.

This year's majors have been a mixed bag for LIV so far. Given the data above, I would argue that the LIV contingent was generally successful in living up to expectations at Valhalla. But this is a step down from the Masters, where they exceeded expectations in terms of top-twelve finishes. So, how will they do at Pinehurst next month, home of the U.S. Open? Or at Royal Troon, home of the Open Championship the month after? Feel free to offer your predictions, either on the YouTube short I posted or in the comment form below.

Update on the Blog and Kindred Activities

I know it's been a while since I wrote last, but there have been some developments here. Firstly, I now have a YouTube channel. On it you can find announcements in short-video form as to whenever I put out a new blog post, usually in advance of the same. From time to time, I'll put out longer-form content, but it's mostly going to consist of videos lasting no more than one minute each. It's taken some time to figure out a direction for the channel, but I plan to mostly use it to get people to read the Devilish Rake. There's still some sawdust, but it's coming along.

Anyway, to get you up to speed, the first Upper Midwest Connection of the Week I missed was Frankie Capan III. He secured the honours twice, at the LECOM Suncoast Classic and the Veritex Bank Championship, both on the Korn Ferry Tour. He set an official course record of -13/58 in his first round! Though he was unable to hold on in the face of Sweden's Tim Widing, who played this week's PGA Championship and made the cut at Valhalla (more later), FCIII still kicked ass, as this was his third straight finish in the top ten on the Korn Ferry Tour. It also secured his status as Upper Midwest Connection of the Month for April 2024.

The next week on the PGA Tour Americas, Thomas Longbella won the KIA Open in Quito, Ecuador for his first win that counts in the world rankings. Longbella is from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Minnesota, playing alongside Angus Flanagan and current Gopher star Ben Warian, among others. He sank an eagle at No 17 to take a one-stroke lead heading into the final round...which was cancelled due to rain and unplayable conditions. On the PGA Tour, they would have tried to play the final round and would've extended it to Monday if necessary. On developmental circuits, though, where the players are often stuck for money, the threshold for Monday finishes is stricter. Since so few were able to start that Sunday, the tournament was curtailed on 54-hole scores, which sufficed for Longbella to secure the win.

Last week, Erik van Rooyen secured Upper Midwest Connection of the Week honours for the first time since the Masters Tournament with his tie for fourth at the inaugural Myrtle Beach Classic. It was his third finish in the top ten on the PGA Tour this year. (For the record, the tourney was won by Chris Gotterup, who had previously been in the reshuffle but earned a trip to this past week's PGA Championship as a result.)

The next post deals with various tidbits on the week that was in tour golf, including (but NOT limited to) the second major of the year.

Draft Day Party Hangover Live Feed, Day Three

 Today marks the last day of the 2024 NFL Draft. I stand corrected as to the time limit on each pick, as each selection in Round 3 was allotted just five minutes, rather than the seven I reported earlier. It'll be so again today for all four rounds.

Disclaimer: I will try to get each pick recorded as it comes in. However, I can't guarantee that I'll be available to do so right away, given that I have some errands to run today. Not to mention that I'll need a bite to eat shortly after the draft resumes. And of course, the rapidity of pick selections makes it difficult to keep up anyway, what with 157 picks today! If necessary to report a case of Draft Day Party Hangover that occurred while I was gone, I will try to phrase it in such a way that you'll recognize.

11:08am: The first pick of Day 3 is Ja'Tavion Sanders of Texas to the Panthers.

11:16am: BREAKING NEWS! Layden Robinson of Texas A&M goes to the Patriots, putting the Aggies at the minimum twelve points for Draft Day Party Hangover. Since A&M had only seven points a year ago, that's enough to satisfy the criteria.

12:13pm: While I was away, Khyree Jackson of Oregon went to the Vikings, putting the Ducks at eighteen points. That was two more than a year ago, good for Draft Day Party Hangover.

12:45pm: The compensatory picks for Round 4 have begun.

12:46pm: And the first comp pick is Sione Vaki of Utah to the Lions, which puts the Utes at twelve points. But that's just one little point short of last year.

12:50pm: The final pick of the fourth round is Jacob Cowing of Arizona to the 49ers. Since there's more compression of the picks today, I'll condense my summaries. Fifty-nine schools had a pick in the first four rounds (six fewer than a year ago). Ten of them have Draft Day Party Hangover. Alabama and Michigan are the only schools with a pick in each round so far.

12:55pm: Nehemiah Pritchett of Auburn is the first pick of the fifth round, going to the Seahawks.

1:57pm: Apologies for the lack of updates of late, but it's been pretty quiet on the Draft Day Party Hangover front the last hour or so.

2:06pm: There are now 100 picks left.

2:22pm: BREAKING NEWS! Jacob Monk of Duke goes to the Packers, putting the Blue Devils at thirteen points. They go from zero picks to Draft Day Party Hangover in a year.

2:35pm: The compensatory picks for Round 5 have begun.

2:54pm: The defending FCS champion South Dakota State Jackrabbits have become the first small-school team to produce two picks this year, as Isaiah Davis goes to the Jets.

3:10pm: Qwan'tez Stiggers of the Toronto Argonauts is the final pick of the fifth round. So far, 66 schools have had a pick (again, down six from last year). Eleven Draft Day Party Hangover cases, and Michigan is the only remaining school with a pick in each round.

3:16pm: Walter Rowse of Oklahoma to the Vikings opens the sixth round.

3:16pm: Logan Lee of Iowa goes to the Steelers, bringing the Hawkeyes to twelve points. But that's barely above half the 23 they had a year ago.

3:18pm: BREAKING NEWS! Sataoa Laumea of Utah goes to the Seahawks, bringing the Utes to thirteen points. That's the same as a year ago, giving them Draft Day Party Hangover.

4pm: The Tom Brady pick is Khristian Boyd of Northern Iowa, who went to the Saints. I say Tom Brady pick because of where Brady went in 2000 (No 199).

4:19pm: Mike Jerrell of Findlay is the first Division II player off the board, going to the Seahawks at No 207. Also, fifty picks remain.

4:21pm: The compensatory picks for Round 6 have begun.

4:43pm: BREAKING NEWS! Devin Leary of Kentucky goes to the Ravens, giving the Wildcats Draft Day Party Hangover on the minimum twelve points.

4:47pm: If Michigan does not send another pick to the Bucs, it will end the hopes of a pick in each round for any school.

4:49pm: It's official: Elijah Klein of UTEP is the final pick of the sixth round. This means no school will have a pick in each round. With one round to go, 77 schools have had a pick selected, six fewer than last year at this point. Thirteen of them have Draft Day Party Hangover.

4:55pm: Travis Clayton launches the final round of the 2024 NFL Draft. He is the second non-collegian to get picked, having passed through the International Pathway Program.

5:29pm: While I was taking care of the horses, USC became the fourteenth case of Draft Day Party Hangover courtesy of Brenden Rice going to the Chargers, giving the Trojans seventeen points--the same as last year.

5:46pm: The last dozen picks are upon us, and for teams with twelve or more points, I will be eliminating teams that can't get to Draft Day Party Hangover due to fewer points than last year.

5:50pm: Ohio St cannot reach Draft Day Party Hangover.

5:51pm: Iowa cannot reach Draft Day Party Hangover.

6pm: No school can rack up fifty points heading into the last run of compensatory selections of this year's draft.

6:02pm: Alabama cannot reach Draft Day Party Hangover.

6:07pm: Illinois cannot reach Draft Day Party Hangover.

6:10pm: Iowa and Georgia cannot reach Draft Day Party Hangover. Teams that can reach it with Mr Irrelevant are Arizona and Oregon State. It would be a fitting requiem for the Pac-12 if either one did.

6:13pm: And Mr Irrelevant is...Jaylen Key of Alabama to the New York Jets. New in 2024: I have a YouTube channel! I just need some time to collate the numbers, and then my first video will be the Draft Day Party Hangover Review Special, dropping (with any luck) tonight. For my longtime readers, a copy of said video will be embedded in this blog.

NFL Draft Day Party Hangover Live Feed, Day 2

 You know the drill. For those just joining the feed, read the frickin' prologue. For the rest of you, here's the second part of the 2024 Draft Day Party Hangover live feed. Rounds 2 and 3 are more rapid-fire than the first, as seven minutes are allotted to each pick tonight.

Day 1 feed

6:11pm: The Bills, having traded out of last night's first round, kick off the second...or will they?

6:14pm: The answer to my post-ellipsis question is "yes."

6:17pm: BREAKING NEWS! Florida State's Keon Coleman is the first pick of the second round, and that's enough to put the Seminoles in Draft Day Party Hangover territory with the minimum twelve points! One year ago, only one pick came from FSU, and that was a fifth-round selection.

6:28pm: Ruke Orhorhoro of Clemson has gone to the Falcons, which puts the Tigers at the minimum twelve points. However, that's only half of what they incurred last year.

6:45pm: BREAKING NEWS! T'Vondre Sweat of Texas goes to the Titans, putting the Longhorns at nineteen points, three more than a year ago.

7:09pm: Jackson Powers-Johnson of Oregon has gone to the Raiders, putting the Ducks at the minimum twelve points. However, that's four fewer than a year ago.

7:21pm: The first Minnesota Gopher and first (pure) safety off the board is Tyler Nubin to the Giants. Five straight years that my alma mater has produced a first- or second-round pick!

7:26pm: Kris Jenkins of Michigan has gone to the Bengals, which puts the defending national champs at the minimum twelve points. But that's fewer than half of what the Wolverines had last year.

7:46pm: Michael Hall of Ohio St has gone to the Browns, putting the Buckeyes at the minimum twelve points. But that's well fewer than half last year's haul.

8:08pm: BREAKING NEWS! Blake Fisher of Notre Dame goes to the Texans, giving the Irish twelve points and one more than a year ago.

8:16pm: BREAKING NEWS! The host Lions select Ennis Rakestraw out of Missouri, giving the Tigers the minimum twelve points for Draft Day Party Hangover. That's quadruple the points of a year ago for Mizzou.

8:28pm: The 49ers conclude Round 2 with Renardo Green out of Florida State. So far in the draft, 34 schools have had a pick, but that's six fewer than a year ago. Only two Group of Five picks and no smaller programs have had picks so far. As for the Power Five (2023 alignments), seven Big Ten schools, six from the Pac-12, nine from the SEC and six from the Big 12 (same number of ACC schools as before, including Notre Dame, which competes in the conference in other sports except ice hockey) have had at least one. A dozen schools have had a pick in both rounds so far.

8:36pm: While I was typing the above, Malachi Corley of Western Kentucky became the first G5 player from outside the MAC to be picked, as he went to the Cardinals to kick off the third round.

9:01pm: And now both CFP finalists have had a pick in each round so far, as Bralen Trice goes to the Falcons after Junior Colson followed his college coach Jim Harbaugh to the Chargers.

9:06pm: Kiran Amegadjie of Yale is the first small-school pick, going to the Bears.

9:27pm: Tip Reiman of Illinois has gone to the Cardinals, giving the Illini thirteen points. However, they are still five points away from a year ago.

9:32pm: BREAKING NEWS! Roman Wilson of Michigan goes to the Steelers after his college teammate Blake Corum went to the Rams with the pick immediately before that. The national champs have 29 Draft Day Party Hangover points, one more than last year, giving the Wolverines the condition.

9:47pm: Marshawn Lloyd of USC has gone to the Packers, giving the Trojans fifteen points. However, they are still two points away from a year ago.

10:03pm: BREAKING NEWS! Adisa Isaac of Penn St goes to the Ravens, giving the Nittany Lions 22 points. That's the same as last year, which is enough for Draft Day Party Hangover.

10:08pm: We are into the compensatory picks, as the Dolphins forfeited their normal pick this round for tampering with Tom Brady. I thought he was retired!

10:22pm: Luke McCaffrey (Christian's brother) is the final pick of Round 3 and the second night, going to the Commanders. After two nights, 47 schools have had a pick (seven fewer than a year ago), including seven from beyond the Power Five. Two are FCS members in Yale and Houston Christian. In addition to the MAC, Conference USA is represented twice over by WKU and, of course, Rice. As for the Power Five, eight cases of Draft Day Party Hangover have been diagnosed with one day remaining.

Power Five breakdown, two nights in: ACC + Notre Dame 9, Big Ten 8, Big 12 8, Pac-12 (RIP) stays at 7, SEC 8. Seven schools, including three participants in last year's College Football Playoff--Michigan, Washington and Alabama--plus Florida State, Georgia, Mizzou and Notre Dame, are eligible to "shoot the moon." That's a term I use for having a pick in every round of the NFL Draft.

NFL Draft Day Party Hangover Live Feed, Day 1

 Okay, I hope you read my prologue before checking out this live feed! If you haven't, I solemnly exhort you to do so now. But if you have, welcome aboard!

With each input in this live feed, I have included a timestamp (CDT, US/Canada) of the action. So, it's time to get your refresh button ready in 3...2...1...

7:12pm:

7:19pm: Caleb Williams (USC), as expected, is headed to the Bears.

7:38pm: Marvin Harrison Jr of Ohio St is the first Big Ten product off the board. Only the Big 12 has yet to produce a pick among last year's Power Five.

7:52pm: Malik Nabers of LSU has gone to the Giants. He is the second Tiger off the board, giving his alma mater fourteen points. However, LSU is one pick away from Draft Day Party Hangover due to having racked up fifteen points a year ago.

8:13pm: BREAKING NEWS! Washington is the first Draft Day Party Hangover case of the 2024 NFL Draft. After having produced zero picks a year ago, the Huskies have produced TWO first round picks!

8:14pm: The first trade of the 2024 draft has occurred, as the Vikings trade up one spot and also get a sixth-round selection in exchange for the 11th and fourth- and fifth-round picks. Most expect J.J. McCarthy of Michigan to be selected by Minnesota.

8:45pm: As I was waiting for the Saints to hear their selection, I put on Gentle Giant's song "Words from the Wise" from their 1978 nadir, Giant for a Day. That band's worst will always kick the ass of your best.

9:04pm: Every power conference has had at least one pick with Byron Murphy II of Texas going to the Seahawks.

9:07pm: Dallas Turner of Alabama has gone to the Vikings as the second Alabama Crimson Tide player off the board, giving his alma mater fourteen points. However, Bama is far from hangover as they racked up 45 points a year ago.

9:17pm: Amarius Mims of Georgia has gone to the Bengals as the second Georgia Bulldog off the board, giving his alma mater fourteen points. However, Georgia is far from hangover as they racked up 38 points a year ago.

9:39pm: Chop Robinson of Penn St has gone to the Dolphins as the second Nittany Lion off the board, giving them fourteen points. However, PSU is not quite at hangover as they racked up twenty-two points a year ago.

9:47pm: Quinyon Mitchell is the first non-Power Five player off the board, coming from Toledo to the Eagles. Gotta love the MACtion on the draft stage.

9:53pm: BREAKING NEWS! A second case of Draft Day Party Hangover emerges with Brian Thomas Jr putting LSU over last year's total of 15 points (21 this year so far)!

10:04pm: The draft host Lions traded up to get Terrion Arnold out of Alabama, who was actually in the draft theatre. Despite his being the third Crimson Tide player this year, Bama is still less than halfway to hangover.

10:31pm: A Make-a-Wish recipient and Chiefs fan named Justin just welcomed Xavier Worthy of Texas to Kansas City. This means the Longhorns have racked up fourteen points. However, they are still two points short of hangover.

10:52pm: And that's the first round! Xavier Legette of South Carolina stays in the Carolinas by going to the Panthers, and his alma mater is the 23rd school represented this year so far (same as a year ago). Conference breakdown (2023 alignments): ACC plus Notre Dame 5 schools, none with more than one; Big Ten 3 schools, four selections; Big 12 1 school as Texas had two picked; Pac-12 (RIP) six schools, eight selections with Washington stricken with hangover; SEC eight schools, thirteen selections with LSU stricken by hangover. Next live feed drops around 6pm CDT tomorrow for rounds 2 and 3!!!

Edward the Scop

NFL Draft Day Party Hangover Live Feed Prologue

After two and a half months of mock drafts, player and position rankings, scouting-combine analysis, college pro days and just plain anticipation, the 2024 NFL Player Selection Meeting is afoot. In a matter of minutes, the din of boos will be raised when Roger Goodell walks upon the draft stage in Detroit for the first time.

Normally a draft analysis would concern draft needs for the teams taking college players and whether the players actually taken fulfill such needs. But I'm not like other draft analysts. Rather, I've committed to taking a page from the great college football writer and prognosticator Phil Steele, who has documented a phenomenon he has referred to as Draft Day Party Hangover since 1998.

The system he adopted assesses the immediate impacts the draft has had on college teams by assigning a point value to each pick, depending on the round in which he was taken. Every first-round pick has a value of seven points, but this drops to five points for second-round selections. Each of the next four rounds decreases the per-pick value by one point, but all sixth- and seventh-round picks are one point each, owing to the lack of significant difference in prospect value at that stage of the event.

What you see here is part of my running table of last year's draft according to Steele's metric. To "achieve" Draft Day Party Hangover, a school must rack up a dozen points' worth of draft picks and at least match its total points from the year before in any given year. The point of the exercise is that, although schools can benefit in terms of recruiting, NIL fundraising and transfer-portal abjuration from having their football programs' players selected in the draft, heavy losses to the draft can create issues in the short term.

As for me, I have been tracking the phenomenon since 2011 in my own right. My data first went public in 2013 on Facebook, but I switched to Twitter these last two years before the Devilish Rake became (I hope) the permanent home of my annual live feed this year.

I mentioned my running table, which is excerpted above. Each round is numbered 1 through 7 with the points accrued in each round noted to help me recall which school produced how many picks in each round of a given draft. The second-last column includes the total points for each school represented in that year's draft. The last is marked "DDPH," which is the initialism for the condition described in this live feed. Each school that produced twelve or more points' worth of draft picks is marked with either an X or an asterisk. If it's an asterisk, it means that the school had at least a dozen points but fewer than last year. If it's an X, that's at least as many points as last year and, therefore, a hangover case.

Got all that? Good! When you understand, do proceed to the next post, which is the live feed itself.

Edward the Scop

FA Cup Replay Eulogy + Semifinal Picks

 THIS IS THE LAST STRAW!!!

When it was announced yesterday that the FA Cup was going to get rid of all remaining proper-stage replays starting next year, I locked myself in my room and bawled for a good ten minutes. It had finally happened: The proliferation of European competition fixtures, coupled with the Premier League's cop out culture, had finally committed the anathema of anathemas against football's oldest competition, regardless of format.

When I mention the Premier League's cop out culture, I mean that player safety and welfare are used as an excuse to reduce the number of domestic fixtures. Yet these concerns are aired despite the fact that teams in the six divisions immediately below the Premier League (National League North and South divisions are both at the sixth tier of the pyramid) are supposed to play eight more league fixtures per season than their top-flight brethren and, again, are muddled by the proliferation of European fixtures.

When I was born in 1989, the big three European competitions (which most Americans didn't know jack about) were straight-up two-legged, home-and-away knockouts (except for the European Cup and Cup Winners' Cup finals, but the UEFA Cup final continued to be home and away until 1998). But some butthurt suit in the early 1990s at, I think, Real Madrid noticed that out-of-nowhere Red Star Belgrade was doing numbers on Europe's club ball royalty, so the bigwigs of Europe implemented a group stage to restrict the little guy. It initially backfired, as Barcelona beat relative backwater club Sampdoria in the 1992 European Cup Final. Undeterred, Big Football added a second progression from each group, renamed the competition the Champions League and, after successfully opening up the transfer market in light of the Bosman ruling of 1995, got UEFA to violate the name of the competition.

Hitherto the Champions League had been just for champions, whether national champs or the champions of Europe. But in 1997-98, UEFA caved in again and allowed eight national runners-up to enter the Champions League. A limit of two plus champions became a limit of four by 2000 and five in 2015. Now, starting next year, as many as seven clubs may represent a given country depending on the performance of the nation's clubs that were involved in European competition the previous year, as well as the outcomes of the Champions and Europa Leagues. (The UEFA Cup, a few years after introducing a group stage of its own, rebranded to its current name in 2009. As for the Cup Winners' Cup, it folded into the UEFA Cup in 1999, but the competitions became three in number again with the advent of the Conference League in 2021.)

It is natural to seek a higher high, but what good is a mansion with gold trim and gilded fixtures if its foundation is built upon shifting sand? The storms will come, and it will fall--and great will be its downfall! Evidence of this in England includes the deaths of the Bury and Macclesfield football clubs, as well as other clubs' flirtations with oblivion (i.e., Bolton Wanderers). I cannot imagine that any supporter of a club in European competition who has a heart does not feel a twinge of guilt and remorse for what their love of European glory has done to the grassroots or even lesser pro clubs--or to the competitions that were greatly beloved in their respective countries.

And few competitions in world football have surpassed the romance of the FA Cup. You want diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)? Well, the DEI of the FA Cup lay in its accessibility and the possibility that any club could defeat another club. Over 700 clubs from the top nine-plus divisions on the pyramid--in other words, almost every FC of importance in England, plus a few in Wales and some offshore islands--might not all get that far, but the hope of a replay and the financial reward that came with doing it all again portended a good chance that a given small-town club would not only survive but thrive for a while. It was a beautiful thing, whether or not the little-guy club pulled a giant-killing against some bigwig eleven (as most famously befell Newcastle United at the hands of host Hereford United in a 1972 third-round replay, a clip of which I have embedded below).

I mentioned that, as an American, I didn't know a thing about the Cup and its lore growing up. During the transition from my failed first attempt at grad school to the successful second, though, I immersed myself imperceptibly in the "magic of the Cup" and typed up a file (sadly now lost) containing all the results, attendances and payouts for each team involved in the 2015-16 edition. I even included red cards and goalscorers for the proper stage! Having committed to West Ham as my Premier League club of choice, I followed their narrow escape over Wolverhampton Wanderers in the third round...and then came the first replay, where they beat Liverpool in added time! Love of the Cup was sealed in my soul for years, even after the Hammers lost another replay, this time to Manchester United in the quarterfinals that season in what proved that round's last-ever replay. (It was also the last-ever FA Cup match at Upton Park.) Not even the Conference League title in 2023 for the Hammers felt as good as being able to spread my love of the Cup, both personally and academically. I wrote a thesis with the Cup as its sporting foundation, graduating from Minnesota State Mankato in 2021 with my master's degree.

Now all those memories have been strangled by the "money first, football nowhere" ethos of the modern game, to quote Phil Annets (whose work I strongly recommend). Because the Cup doesn't have much prize money despite its international reach on television, and because it doesn't carry a Champions League berth to the winner, it's dismissed as inconvenient by the big clubs and their people. (This despite the fact that all but four Cups in my lifetime have been won by the "big six," for which reason their opposition to a UCL berth for the Cup winner is also largely hypocritical.) Hence, backup players are often thrust into match day squads for Cup fixtures, unless it's the only hope for silverware that a given club has on the campaign. Sadly, their attitudes have seeped into many fans as well, especially those who don't know or have forgotten the pitfalls of forsaking their sporting roots. All this adds up to a bleak outlook for the Cup, one that is even murkier than when Covid-19 struck a few years ago.

All told, this season might be the last one during which I feel comfortable doing FA Cup picks. I cannot abide doing them without replays. RIP FA Cup proper stage replays. May your memory be a blessing to all football fans.

Having said that, here are my semifinal picks:

Manchester City 3-4 Chelsea (actual 1-0)

Coventry City 1-2 Manchester United (actual 3-3, Man United won on pens; 500pt)

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 14 April 2024

 In my last post, I mentioned in passing that Zach Johnson is an Umcee who also happens to be a former Masters champion. Back in 2007, he won the green jacket despite struggling to a +1/289--good enough to beat Retief Goosen, Rory Sabbatini and Tiger Woods by two strokes. Conditions were so horrible that any of the 97 participants that year would've been entitled to laugh at Jon Rahm's complaints about this year's Friday conditions.

But that was then. Fast-forward seventeen years later and ZJ got into trouble for cussing at a crucial juncture. He missed the cut by one stroke (+7/151 after two rounds) and, barring open qualification or other merits for this June's U.S. Open at Pinehurst in North Carolina, we won't see him in another major until the Open at Royal Troon in July. Needless to say, the best of times is behind the two-time major winner. But there was an Umcee who did make the cut at Augusta...

(PGA Tour)

Erik van Rooyen.

You would think that a guy who struggled on all but one day--Thursday's -1/71 opening round--en route to a T55 finish, dropped three places in the FedEx Cup and slipped a spot in the OWGR would not merit to be Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, but there are a couple good reasons for my selecting EVR for the honour. Firstly, that he made the cut at all is a milestone--van Rooyen withdrew after a single round in 2020 due to injury and MC in 2022 on his last visit. Moreover, the ten (even) FedEx Cup points he earned enabled him to pip Grayson Murray (winner of this year's Sony Open) to the final Next 10 place in this week's RBC Heritage. Though to be fair, Nicolai Hojgaard's collapse on the weekend helped as well!

This week features all three PGA Tour circuits in action for the first time this year. The Heritage, in addition to van Rooyen and 67 others (yes, they fell short of seventy again, which means they need to consider adding alternates in 2025 and beyond), Tom Hoge returns from a fortnightly hiatus. Part of it was voluntary, but it made the other part required, as Hoge's decision to skip the Texas Open despite not qualifying for the Masters rendered last week an off week for him. On top of the signature event at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, the Corales Punta-Cana Resort Championship takes a side stage in the Dominican Republic. Although ZJ won't be in the Umcee contingent, Troy Merritt returns to action, and he'll be joined by former Minnesota Gopher Thomas Longbella, who won the Monday qualifier to make the event for the second straight year. The way in was last week to allow for travel plans, as with most overseas events on the PGA Tour.

Beyond the big tour, the Korn Ferry Tour holds the LECOM Suncoast Classic. North Oaks, Minnesota's Frankie Capan III will be there, and conditional member Van Holmgren of Plymouth, Minnesota will join him in an effort to gain full access to the following four events via the reshuffle. Lastly, the other four Umcees in action this week will be playing the Brazilian Open on the PGA Tour Americas. Derek Hitchner of Minneapolis will be looking to build on his last start, which resulted in a T3 at the Totalplay Championship three weeks ago and got him Upper Midwest Connection of the Week honours, and he'll be joined by George Kneiser, Harrison Ott and Matthew Walker, among others. For the second straight year, dating back to the PGA Tour Latinoamerica last year, the host course will be the same that hosted the 2016 Olympic golf tourney--the first such event since 1904 in St Louis.

Edward the Scop

Masters Review + Various Activity Updates

 The core of the golf season has begun! Well, for those who read this blog, there is no core of the season since the entire campaign matters. But a chapter does seem to be turned each year when the Masters Tournament is played in such a way that you don't get with the fall series or even the Players Championship. Perhaps it's in the way that CBS replaces NBC as the primary U.S. weekend afternoon broadcaster of PGA Tour events through at least the Wyndham Championship every August. (This year, since it's an Olympic year, CBS gets the FedEx Cup playoffs as well so that NBC can concentrate on the Games in Paris.) Especially in recent years, it also matters that LIV member-contractors are back alongside PGA Tour golfers in a way you normally don't see outside the majors. Or maybe it's the fact that almost everywhere you go in the Lower 48, it's springtime, a fact not lost on Augusta National Golf Club. Here in Minnesota, we had temps in the 70s this past weekend!

Masters Week began in earnest Tuesday night (after the usual practice round for all 89 participants, of course) with defending champion Jon Rahm serving up a Basque-style Champions' Dinner in the ANGC clubhouse, four decades to the year after Seve Ballesteros served his second and final Masters Club. Rahm collaborated with his countryman, the legendary chef Jose Andres, to feed what by all accounts was a tasty meal to 32 fellow past champions--including one Umcee, 2007 champion Zach Johnson--and ANGC chairman Fred Ridley. The only non-attendees among past champs were Angel Cabrera (2009), who is still dealing with visa issues stemming from his domestic-abuse past in Argentina, and Bernhard Langer (1985/1993), who injured his Achilles while playing pickleball. (Langer has vowed to make 2025 his last Masters actually playing--a fitting swan song forty years after his first win.) Of course, most of us will never know what it was really like, as the only elements historically made known to virtually everyone who isn't a past Masters champion have been a picture of the past surviving champs and a copy of the menu. In any case, the night's fun and unity ended when Tom Watson (1977/1981) said: "Ain't it good to be together again?" Raymond Floyd (1984/1995) apparently felt his blood run so cold that he left the dinner. The remaining attendees sat there in silence, as Watson himself attested two days later following his ceremonial tee-off with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.

The Masters' past champions betray little sign of dissension in their ranks (Golf Magazine).

Controversy and gastronomy aside, the next day was marked by the par-3 contest. It is said that you don't want to win the event if you want a green jacket come Sunday evening, for no par-3 contest winner has gone on to win the main event the same year. This year, the fun but unfortunate burden dropped upon Rickie Fowler. He needed others to struggle in the tough conditions of Friday to avoid the same MC fate that befell Johnson's fellow-Umcee Tom Hoge last year. Fowler at least went -1/143 at the weekend to finish T30, but it obviously wasn't nearly enough to end the curse. He earned $124 200 for his week.

In the end, the winner was surprisingly predictable. Scottie Scheffler, who came in at 4-1 odds--having lost the Houston Open a fortnight earlier by missing a short birdie try to Stephan Jaeger of Germany--pulled away from a tie at -7 through three rounds with Collin Morikawa (who remains a green jacket and U.S. Open title away from the career grand slam) to beat Masters (and major championship) newbie Ludvig Aberg by four strokes, -11/277 to -7/281. Morikawa finished third alongside Max Homa and Tommy Fleetwood (who remains winless stateside despite seven DP World Tour wins) on -4/284. The top LIV member-contractors were Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Smith, two shots back at -2/286. Percentagewise, it was a pretty good showing for the LIV contingent. Let me explain:

Thirteen LIV member-contractors participated in the 2024 Masters Tournament out of 89 total competitors. If you divide 13 by 89, you get a proportion of ~14.6067 per cent affiliated with LIV at Augusta National.

Fifteen players--the top twelve and anybody tying for twelfth--are expected to be back next year at Augusta. If you multiply 15 by the proportion of 14.6067 per cent, you get about 2.191 LIV golfers expected to finish in that range on average. Rounded up to the next whole number, it's safe to say three would have been a decent expectation. In the end, four--DeChambeau, Smith, Tyrrell Hatton and past champ Patrick Reed--were among the free invites. Of course, it's not like the first two were in need of a qualifying mechanism anyway, as DeChambeau is exempt at all majors through next year's U.S. Open and that one alone for five years thereafter, while Smith is exempt to them all through 2027. That said, given how far LIV member-contractors have fallen down the OWGR for lack of points for the circuit or access to points-bearing events better than those on the Asian Tour for the most part, I'm sure Hatton will be especially grateful for the opportunity to come back next year.

Other, more PGA Tour-loyal beneficiaries of the expected top-12 rule are Xander Schauffele, Cam Young, Will Zalatoris, Cam Davis, Matthieu Pavon and Adam Schenk. Given the tough conditions, it's no surprise that only Xander finished under par for the week.

Questions for next year's tournament: Will Angel Cabrera be let back into the United States? How will Bernhard Langer fare in what's expected to be his final Masters? Will the mainstream tours--including, but not limited to, the PGA Tour--be any nearer a rapprochement with LIV Golf, rendering Watson's quip redundant? How many Umcees will be in the field? Perhaps above all, will Scottie Scheffler retain the green jacket; and if so, will he have to put it on by himself?! (If not, of course, whom will he invest with it?)

As a postscript, I should note that as I write this, one of the busiest fortnights of the blog year is upon me. My next post, scheduled for Wednesday or even Tuesday, recognizes the top Upper Midwest connection of Masters Week. By Friday, you can expect to see my FA Cup semifinal picks, and then the next week sees another Upper Midwest Connection of the Week post. And of course, I'll need to get tuned up for the golf season at my local course. But the biggest part of these next two weeks for the blog is my NFL Draft Day Party Hangover live feed. See the Glossary that I put up during the weekend for more details on the system and its inspiration, but I will reiterate the details in all likelihood in some future post here.

Edward the Scop