Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 27 August 2023

 Originally, I was going to post this yesterday, as I usually need some time to assess the candidates for Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, but I had a long day yesterday and needed some rest. As I write, I just got done helping livestream the third episode of Ahsoka. I told you I'm a nerd!

Anyway, it was a bit feistier last week than the previous two weeks, as the PGA Tour Canada returned to action for the final three weeks of its existence. Even so, there were only seven men Umcees eligible for last week's honour, along with Kate Smith and Kim Kaufman, winners of the plaudit the last two weeks. A pittance by normal standards, but let's run down the list.

Three of the Umcees--Frankie Capan III, Will Grevlos and Derek Hitchner--missed the cut. Capan is in danger of having to play a second season on the Korn Ferry Tour, though he shouldn't have to compete against the reshuffle, and he might even have to start in Second Stage of Q-school, the way things are going for him. Grevlos will have to First Stage to get any privileges on so much as the PGA Tour Americas for next year, but Hitchner is guaranteed Second Stage because of his PGA Tour U finish (#14). All three were out of the running for Upper Midwest Connection of the Week.

Of the six who made it, Kaufman wasn't that impressive at the Circling Raven Championship in Worley, Idaho, near Coeur d'Alene, only mustering a T63 and pocketing $749. Her final-round 75 was her worst of the week. Back on the men's side of things at the Manitoba Open in Winnipeg, George Kneiser of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin broke 70 the first two days but settled for par Saturday and suffered a +1 Sunday to finish T37. He remains 16th in the Fortinet Cup. His fellow-Wisconsinite Harrison Ott of Broomfield had a similar weekend showing, although his first two rounds were each one stroke better than Kneiser's corresponding performances, earning him a T28 and improving his Fortinet Cup standing to #62 with one last chance to retain his card this week at the CRMC Championship in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. Returning to the ladies' side, Kate Smith wasn't so lucky, improving each round of the aforementioned Circling Raven Championship from 71 Friday to 70 Saturday and 68 Sunday, but she slipped to #17 in the Race for the Card somehow.

That leaves two Umcees who reached the top 15 at the Manitoba Open to vie for the weekly plaudit. These guys were the tie for 11th. They both hail from Wisconsin--one from Chippewa Falls, the other from Janesville. Both went to Big Ten schools for university, as one left the Dairyland for Minnesota, while the other stayed home and made the short jog to UW-Madison. One reached the top 25 in the Fortinet Cup, while the other gave himself an outside hope of making it to next week's PGA Tour Canada swan song. But when it came to choosing an Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, I knew I had to pick the more milestone-based achiever. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for...

Thomas Longbella.

With all due respect to Jordan Hahn, who also tied for 11th, Longbella figures to carry more weight in Q-school when that rolls around and going forward. The reason? Longbella's performance lifted him into the top 25 at #22, and since he was all but guaranteed to make the grand finale in Calgary, he'll have two opportunities to consolidate a first-stage bye for the second year running. The CRMC Championship is just a few hours' drive from his alma mater, and the Fortinet Cup Championship doesn't have a cut. To make a long story short, Thomas Longbella has truly merited to become, in the short history of this blog, my first two-time Upper Midwest Connection of the Week.

This week, in addition to the Pequot Lakes event, both European Tour Group top-two tours will feature Umcees in their respective fields, and both are former Minnesota Gophers. Angus Flanagan tees off at the IGG Challenge in Sweden at 7:30 local time Thursday (12:30 Twin Cities/11:30pm Wednesday western Dakotas), and Erik van Rooyen follows suit an hour later at the Omega European Masters in Crans Montana, Switzerland (8:30 local/1:30 Twin Cities/12:30 W Dakotas). This will give fans of these golfers something to get up for during the fortnight in which both the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour are off. Are y'all insomniac enough?

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 20 August 2023

 It was another quiet week for men's Umcees in tour golf. Only three such players were involved in such events worldwide. Tom Hoge teed it up at the BMW Championship (always to be regarded as the reincarnation of the Western Open) at Olympia Fields near Chicago with a very outside chance of a return to East Lake. Frankie Capan III, seeking to break out of a slump on the Korn Ferry Tour, concluded his first (and so far, only) regular season of professional tour golf at the Magnit Championship in New Jersey. As for former Minnesota Gopher Angus Flanagan, he finally got a chance to show his stuff at the Vierumaki Finnish Challenge in, well, Finland. It helped his chances of starting that the DP World Tour resumed after having been off since the Open Championship. So, how did each do?

Despite a good showing, narrowly missing a third top-20 finish in five starts, Hoge had to crack the top four (at least) with no more than two ties for the minimum finish. His season is over, though he does have the signature events to look forward to in 2024. Capan never got going in the last event before the KFT Finals, slipping to #43 on the points list. Flanagan had arguably the best week of the men, all things considered, but an up-and-down final round in Finland meant he only moved from #186 to #170 on the Road to Mallorca. He'll have work to do to improve his status on either side of the pond much, whether through any further Challenge Tour events or through Q-school.

For the second straight week, it was the women's game that provided the Umcee fireworks. Specifically, the two Umcees on the second-tier Epson Tour very much led the region at the Wildhorse Ladies Golf Classic. Unfortunately, the wildfires in the region (which are starting to be cured by rain from Tropical Storm Hillary) wiped out the final round due to heavy smoke, so the affair was cut short. Nevertheless, official money was allocated to all who had made the cut the day before. Last week's Upper Midwest Connection of the Week, Kate Smith, finished a healthy T13 with six others. However, she loses her throne this week to a more seasoned player, namely...

Kim Kaufman.

Heading into the Wildhorse Classic, the Clark, South Dakota native had made less than $10 grand on the Epson Tour, where she'd been relegated a couple years ago after losing her LPGA Tour card, in the course of the 2023 season. Well, she made almost half her prize money on the year from this event alone ($7753 to be exact) by tying for fourth. Her efforts enabled her to jump from #88 to #65 on the Epson Tour money list. This is significant since only the top eighty members by winnings get to keep their cards (provided they don't finish top ten and get promoted to the LPGA Tour or finish top-20 or so at LPGA Q-Series). Both she and Smith are guaranteed to at least crack Stage II of Q-school, having been among the top 125 in the Epson Tour as of the end of the Four Winds Invitational the week before the Wildhorse Classic. However, I'm sure Kaufman would like to join Smith in being on track to skip straight to Q-Series, which admits the top 25 Epson Tour money list finishers not otherwise in the top ten, among others.

(Before I preview this week's action, honourable mention to Smith, whose finish allowed her to climb to #14 in the money list. If she keeps it up, there's no way she'll miss out on winning in the Race for the Card.)

This week should see more action on the men's side of things. PGA Tour Canada resumes after its fortnightly hiatus at the Manitoba Open, so plenty of Umcees can be observed in action. Also, the aforementioned KFT Finals begin with the Boise Open, and Capan is expected to play all rounds in his quest for a PGA Tour card. Lastly, there's a chance Flanagan sneaks into the Dormy Open in Sweden on the Challenge Tour (he's one of the top alternates as of this writing).

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 13 August 2023

 When I created my Upper Midwest Connection of the Week honour, I promised I wouldn't limit myself to any given tour or tours. This is especially critical to determine who it has been for weeks when it seems activity is down. Last week was one of those weeks.

In the whole wide world of men's tour golf, a mere three Umcees competed last week: Tom Hoge on the PGA Tour and Frankie Capan III and Tripp Kinney on the Korn Ferry Tour. There was no PGA Tour Canada event, as that circuit is on a fortnightly hiatus ahead of next week's Manitoba Open and the following week's CRMC Championship near Brainerd in my home state of Minnesota. Let's look at how they performed...

We start, of course, with Hoge. The Fargo product made the FedEx Cup playoffs for the fourth straight year despite the tightening of criteria (just seventy this year as opposed to 125 in past years). Despite being very overlooked, Hoge started out with promise, carding an opening -3 by shooting 67 at TPC Southwind in Memphis at the FedEx St Jude Championship. Even the next day wasn't too shabby, as he also broke par with a 69. Unfortunately, it hit the fan Saturday with a 73. Hoge was in danger of missing the BMW Championship this week (fifty this year made it, down from seventy in the past) for the first time since nearly losing his Tour card in 2019 before birdieing the last three holes somehow on Sunday. His -4 finish dropped him to #48 (from #46) in the standings, so he has a lot of work to do to make a second straight trip to East Lake.

Meanwhile, Capan entered the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha at #38 in the KFT Points List but slipped one spot as a result of his performance. This was because he struggled at the weekend with rounds of 73 and 72, both over par (+2 and +1, respectively). It's clear Capan was outshined by Tripp Kinney, who actually trailed him with one round to go. But then Kinney rattled off six birdies Sunday, and only a bogey on his fourth-to-last hole kept him from building on his jump to #178 (from #233) in the points list this week at the Magnit Championship in New Jersey before next week's KFT Finals opener at the Boise Open. With all that said, though, the Upper Midwest Connection of the Week for last week is...

Kate Smith.

You didn't think I follow women's golf, did you?! Well, an Umcee is an Umcee, and Smith counts as one.

Hailing from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota and a local five-time high school state champ at the Double-A level in the state girls' golf tournament, Smith entered last week's Four Winds Invitational in South Bend, Indiana without a top-five finish in her as yet short professional golf career since graduating from the University of Nebraska in 2022. Well, she got not only that, but a place on the podium with Gabi Ruffels of Australia (who won for the third time on the Epson Tour, which is the LPGA Tour's equivalent of the KFT) and fellow runner-up Becca Huffer. Indeed, had Smith recorded birdie at the last, she would have added $6400 to her winnings of $16 020. As it stands, Smith had been teetering towards falling outside the top 35 on the order of merit on the Epson Tour, known appropriately as the Race for the Card. This is important because, unlike the PGA Tour, the majority of promotees to the LPGA Tour come via qualifying school finals, AKA Q-Series.

How is this so? Only ten cards are awarded directly via Epson Tour money, while twenty are given to the top finishers at Q-Series. If a golfer has to play Q-Series, she had better finish top 35 on the Epson Tour if she isn't already an LPGA Tour member to gain direct entry upon applying. As a result of her career best showing, Smith moved from #30 to #19 in the Race for the Card!

This week, the spotlight will inevitably be cast upon Olympia Fields near Chicago, as the BMW Championship goes down to determine the thirty Tour Championship participants. That said, let's not lose sight of the fact that the KFT is also wrapping its regular season as the PGA Tour did a couple weeks ago. Hopefully Frankie Capan III can snap out of his funk and get to the top 30 by season's end, earning a card on the PGA Tour.

Edward the Scop

Upper Midwest Connection of the Week Ending 23 July 2023

After a weekend defined by Open Championship dominance on the part of Brian Harman (definitely not an Umcee), a playoff in the opposite-field Barracuda Championship and, of course, a developmental golf devil in the details, it's that time of week again. You know, time to name the latest Upper Midwest Connection of the Week.

Last week, I noted nine Umcees in tour golf fields of significance. But it turns out I'd completely forgotten Iowa City-born, Cedar Rapids-raised, Drake University-educated 2015 Open champion Zach Johnson! Oops! Anyway, of the ten to play last week, Tom Hoge (#1 among Umcees heading into the week) missed the cut at Royal Liverpool by two strokes (+5 through Friday), but Johnson made it thanks to a -2 second round to get to +2 for the week to that point. Back in America, Erik van Rooyen and Troy Merritt both cleared the cutline at the Barracuda by a combined two points in a modified Stableford system. Van Rooyen just made it on a measly three points on Friday (eight Thursday), while Merritt scored thirteen the first two days. On the Korn Ferry Tour, Frankie Capan III made the weekend at the Price Cutter, but only because of a rain delay Friday.

All this was nothing compared with what befell the Umcee contingent in the Canadian capital, Ottawa. Of the five entrants with connections to the Upper Midwest, only Chippewa Falls, WI native and former University of Minnesota golfer Thomas Longbella made the cut. His fellow Wisconsinite, George Kneiser of Oconomowoc, missed by but one stroke. Derek Hitchner of Minneapolis didn't show up, and Harrison Ott of Brookfield, WI withdrew after one round for reasons unknown. And of course, we know about Justin Doeden.

So, what happened after the cut fell? Longbella was looking good on -10 after two rounds, but then he stumbled on Saturday and only mustered a 70 on Sunday, good for -1 to finish -7 (T43, fell to #33 in Fortinet Cup). Johnson failed to break par the last two days of the Open, finishing +5 (T55 but did move up to #150 in FedEx Cup). The going was better for Merritt on Sunday, but he couldn't get much going generally after his Thursday of 11 points, finishing with just 21 (T50, slipped to #130 in FedEx Cup). Seeing as how it's not how you start but how you finish, the logical choice for Upper Midwest Connection of the week is...

Erik van Rooyen.

Let's face it, it's not been the best year for the former Minnesota Golden Gopher from South Africa. After his injuries a year ago, many thought van Rooyen would bounce back this year. Alas, he came into the previous week's Scottish Open off seven straight missed cuts, and he hadn't had a top-10--make that top-30--finish since the Valspar Championship in March. Even though he made the cut at the Renaissance Club, he stumbled after doing so with back-to-back +3 rounds to finish T68 and plummet to #215 in the world. He put many of his droughts to rest, though, with a strong weekend in Truckee, CA with consecutive rounds of double-digit points. Ten points on Saturday raised his hopes of a good finish, which became a great finish with a fourteen-point Sunday. It sufficed to take him to a four-way T6 in the end, good for 52.5 points in the FedEx Cup and a twenty-place jump in the world rankings. He also climbed to #126 in the FedEx Cup standings, just one place out of where he'll need to finish this fall to retain his card.

Now he gets to return to the PGA Tour event held a stone's throw from where he went to college. He hasn't performed well so far at the 3M Open, but with the playoffs yet an outside hope, van Rooyen will be motivated to go up against some of the top Umcees in golf, as well as other luminaries like Justin Thomas, Hideki Matsuyama and, of course, reigning champion Tony Finau, whose win at the 3M last year sparked a three-win stretch through the Houston Open in the fall. Game on!

Edward the Scop

Re: Justin Doeden, Part II: The Incident (and Suggested Punishment)

UPDATE, 24 JULY 2023: Justin Doeden has reopened his Twitter feed, and the first thing he tweeted was below.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I am here to confess of the biggest mistake I have made in my life to date. I cheated in golf. This is not who I am. I let my sponsors down. I let my competitors down. I let my family down. I let myself down. I pray for your forgiveness. John 1:9 <a href="https://twitter.com/acaseofthegolf1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@acaseofthegolf1</a></p>&mdash; Justin Doeden (@jdoeden11) <a href="https://twitter.com/jdoeden11/status/1683501137905762304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Just to be clear, I am all for people acknowledging mistakes than can affect their careers. I still believe he should be suspended for some time, but his relatively prompt response to Ryan French's article (as cited in the original version of this post) two days after the article broke is a good sign of the contrition I was talking about. Furthermore, were he to back up his apology in some tangible way, I would suggest a lighter punishment than what I recommended at first.

Some of the info in this second part of my rant on Justin Doeden is adapted from Ryan French's article on the matter. I have followed Ryan's work on lesser-known tours and players on Twitter, although that era will end on Wednesday when I delete my feed and leave Twitter for good, as promised. I still intend to subscribe to his website since Lord knows he needs the money!

Anyway, when I found out Doeden had withdrawn from the Commissionaires Ottawa Open on PGA Tour Canada yesterday, he had been fluctuating between -1 and -3. The cutline of -2 was based on the low 60 and ties, according to PGA Tour Canada regulations. I initially thought it was a data-entry error that had raised my hopes of following Doeden this weekend and later theorized he had withdrawn due to injury or illness.

Well, neither was the case. According to the linked article, Doeden was even through seventeen holes at -3 and needed only a par or even single bogey to make the weekend. But his second shot hit the water and his fourth hit the bunker by the green, and he couldn't get up and down to save bogey, taking a tap-in 7 to finish -1.

But it is believed that sometime between the last tap-in and the official scoring of his round, Doeden altered his 7 from the last hole to a 5. When rules officials confirmed the actual score, Doeden announced his withdrawal from the event.

It's one thing when a golfer who happens to be an Umcee melts down on course after a bad shot, as happened with Doeden's fellow-alumnus of the U of M, Erik van Rooyen, at the 2021 PGA Championship. But tee markers are replaceable. Divots from anger over a topped shot are replaceable. What isn't remotely as replaceable is sporting integrity lost to cheating. The only hope is that this incident isn't serial a la Patrick Reed when he was on the PGA Tour (and God knows if it's continued in his LIV era). For now, it brings me no pleasure to suggest the following sanctions against Justin Doeden:

1. That he be banned from PGA Tour Canada for the rest of the season. Wherever he goes the rest of the summer, Doeden would be followed by the allegations of cheating. Not having any hope of a paycheck until at least September would encourage him to think about the consequences of breaking the rules next time the lust for money earned doing so overwhelms him.
2. That until the ban is lifted, Doeden be not allowed to enter any qualifiers, including pre-qualifiers for PGA Tour events, nor seek any sponsor's exemptions for the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour. This would affect the next two PGA Tour events--the Wyndham Championship and the Fortinet Championship (the latter part of the FedEx Cup Fall). It would also apply to the last four events before the Korn Ferry Finals: the NV5 Invitational, the Utah Championship, the Pinnacle Bank Championship and the Magnit Championship. He wouldn't be allowed to enter any further pre-qualifiers until the ones for the Sanderson Farms Championship. This would close a competition loophole that he could otherwise exploit to get around the ban, which would enable him further, possibly.

I am not sure a life ban is the answer, especially if he proves contrite. If not, though, that may have to be an option. Furthermore, since Doeden's 16th place finish in the Totalplay Cup for PGA Tour Latinoamerica guarantees him a trip to Second Stage of Q-school, and that doesn't take place until November, he'll have sufficient time to show contrition before he is guaranteed to play again.

Again, these are just my suggestions. Feel free to suggest your own takes and punishments by commenting if you like.

Edward the Scop

Re: Justin Doeden, Part I: Background to an Incident

Any time a golfer or anybody whose career revolves around golf does something that tarnishes the sport, it's reason for pause. We've been bombarded with stories about the PGA Tour clashing with breakaway golfers forming the LIV Golf League, lured by Saudi money without apparent strings. Then came the hypocrisy of imitating LIV with designated events run strictly by the PGA Tour rather than in collaboration with other tours as the similarly no-cut WGCs had been run. (The only difference is these designated events will have 72 holes, not 54.) And to top it all off, the PGA Tour acquiesced to the Public Investment Fund to make peace with LIV after pretending to stand for the integrity of the game.

All this is well-documented. But at the end of the day, it doesn't compare with an actual breach of the rules of the sport. Whereas PGA v LIV is a matter for the sport's professional governing bodies to sort out (with a little help from the politician-friends of said bodies), the incident described and the punishment I recommend in these next couple posts is related to playing the game itself. And the player who broke the rules, sadly, happens to be an Umcee.

Justin Doeden of Prior Lake, MN has had a quiet but respectable career grinding on PGA Tour Canada since graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2018. He was forced to go back to Q-school for that tour in 2019 but managed to finish 36th in the money list that year, earning full membership for 2020. Only, Covid-19 intervened, killing PGA Tour Canada for two years. In the meantime, Doeden continued to plug away on the LOCALiQ Series in 2020, even taking the 54-hole Classic at the Club at Weston Hills for his first PGA Tour pyramid win. As Covid continued to close the Canadian border in 2021, Doeden participated on the one-off Forme Tour and finished 27th, missing out on a First Stage bye for Q-school by just seven points. That said, he made it through First Stage and squeaked through Second Stage to earn conditional Korn Ferry status, though he wasn't able to capitalize at Final Stage. Last year was a step backward, but he still mustered a top-50 finish in the new Fortinet Cup, which is a points-based metric that has replaced the money list for PGA Tour Canada.

Justin Doeden in happier times.

After sitting out last year's Korn Ferry Q-school due to injury, Doeden qualified for half a season on the other third-tier circuit in the PGA Tour pyramid, PGA Tour Latinoamerica. He struggled early on, missing the first two cuts, but then made it at the Chile Open in mid-December. He cracked the top-60 threshold needed for survival to the second half of the season with a T12 when it resumed at the Rio Hondo Invitational in March in Argentina. By the time the reshuffle followed the Brazilian Open in early April, Doeden had secured enough points to play the second half of the Latinoamerica schedule. His first top-10 finish on the Latinoamerica was a T6 at the Kia Open in Ecuador in early May, but his best showing was in the all-time finale of the PGA Tour Latinoamerica at the Bupa Tour Championship on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

Doeden was one of two losers in the playoff to decide the winner of the event, along with France's Jeremy Gandon. (Chandler Blanchet won all the marbles.) This PT2 lifted Doeden to a final Totalplay Cup (points system for the Latinoamerica) standing of #16, good for a long-awaited Second Stage direct entry. Given such a track record, one would think he could suddenly do little wrong that mattered, right? Wrong! One month or so after his strong showing in Mexico, Justin Doeden committed an incident that could epitomize a good golfer gone foul...

To be continued,

Edward the Scop