For more than a decade, the top pro golf tour in men’s golf has not featured a Minnesotan on a full-time basis.
That streak will end in January when Frankie Capan III tees it up on the PGA Tour as a fully-exempt cardholder.
The North Oaks’ product effectively sealed his card weeks ago, but he hit the point threshold to make it official with his tie for 12th place over the weekend at the Simmons Bank Open in Franklin, Tennessee. Capan carded a 6-under, 64 on Sunday to get to 15-under for the tournament.
The top-30 players on the Korn Ferry Tour’s season-long points list earn the promotion to the PGA Tour. Capan is 14th with two playoff events to play. It’s mathematically impossible for the 24-year-old to fall out of the top 30, which is why the tour declared him to be officially “Tour Bound” on Sunday.
Capan is believed to be the first Minnesota native to be fully exempt on the PGA Tour since Minnetonka native Donald Constable had status in 2013.
Capan is a fast riser in professional golf. The 2024 campaign was just his second as a pro. He used a memorable run through qualifying school in the fall of 2022 to go from no status on any tour to the Korn Ferry Tour — the PGA Tour’s primary feeder tour — last year. Capan played well enough to maintain his status heading into this season, and logged a pair of top-two finishes to cement himself inside the top 30.
Capan has played in each of the past two U.S. Opens. He made the cut in the major championship this summer, just as he did when he teed it up at the 3M Open on a sponsor’s exemption last year. He passed on an invitation to play in Minnesota’s PGA Tour event this summer, citing a will to make it on his own merit in years to come — then he his play brought that wish to fruition.
