Frankie Capan III opened his rookie season on the PGA Tour with a series of strong performances.
And then the success dried up. And when things start to go bad on the top tour in men’s pro golf, it’s difficult to turn the ship around.
Capan missed six straight cuts entering this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and was in need of a spark to get his season back on track. He appears to have found that in the form of team golf at TPC Louisiana.
Capan and his partner, Jake Knapp, posted a 12-under round of 60 in the third round of the tournament Saturday in Avondale, Louisiana, to move to 24-under on the week, good for a tie for second. The duo, which will play in the final group in Sunday’s final round, is just three shots back of leaders Andrew Novak and Ben Griffin. That group tees off at 12:55 p.m. Central on Sunday.
Saturday’s format was four-ball, in which both players on the two-man team play their own ball, and the best score between the two on each hole is recorded for the score. Capan birdied eight holes Saturday, while Knapp had eight as the tandem tallied the best score of the day.
“We birdied a lot of opposite holes, so that helped a lot,” Capan told reporters. “I really think we both had a good chance on most every hole, and in a best ball it’s nice to just have a lot of looks at it, and I felt like we did a really good job of just kind of taking care of our own games and making a few putts out there.”
Saturday’s round was likely the best the North Oaks product has played since he finished 12th at The American Express back in mid-January. The 25 year old has struggled with his driver in recent months. Yet he said Saturday he never felt his game was “too far away.”
“I think that’s the unique thing about golf is you could have one weird day or a couple bounces not go your way and think, man, I shot 74, but it really didn’t feel like I played that poorly. I think for me, it’s just a matter of getting more experience,” Capan said. “I always enjoyed learning from people older and more experienced than me, so it’s been great having Jake by my side and just kind of picking his brain and asking him a few things here and there and working on some shots, as well.”
Sunday marks Capan’s first time in the hunt to win a PGA Tour event. And while the team format doesn’t offer Official World Golf Rankings points, there’s a significant amount at stake. The FedEx Cup points are significant. If Capan and Knapp merely held their current position, Capan would climb from 149th to 95th in the season-long standings.
But if the duo was to win, Capan’s career trajectory could be forever changed. Not only would that equal a two-year PGA Tour exemption, but Capan would also automatically be into all of the high-purse, high-point Signature Events over the remainder of the season and earn a spot in next month’s PGA Championship.
That’s a lot to think about heading into Sunday’s final round, which features an alternate shot format in which Capan and Knapp will play the same ball and take turns taking strokes. Thankfully for Capan, he can lean upon Knapp, who just won a PGA Tour event last season in Mexico.
“I think at every level, whether it’s junior golf, amateur golf, Korn Ferry Tour, now PGA Tour, you want to just kind of get comfortable at every stage, and I feel like I’ve been able to
do that better and better the last couple years,” Capan said. “But having Jake by my side has been great. He was helping me with a couple things on the range (Friday), even for some tee shots today that I felt like really helped. I feel like my game felt a lot more clean than it did the first couple rounds. Just going to go work on a few more things and be ready for (Sunday).”
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