Frankie Capan simply put his driver again within the bag this week.
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Frankie Capan III has executed nearly all the pieces on the Korn Ferry Tour this season, together with clinching his PGA Tour card simply final week as he sits fifteenth on the Tour’s factors listing, besides win.
However this week in Columbus, Capan (pronounced SAP-en), is in place so as to add the lacking piece on the Korn Ferry’s penultimate 2024 occasion. Capan leads the Nationwide Kids’s Hospital Championship by one shot heading into the ultimate spherical.
Understandably, Capan’s recreation has been firing on all cylinders this week as he’s second within the subject, having missed simply 9 greens via 54 holes and is tied for fourth with 14 birdies at a troublesome Ohio State College Golf Membership Scarlet course.
One of many causes Capan has credited his sturdy play this week to is driving. He ranked ninetieth on the Korn Ferry Tour in complete driving, which mixes the ranks of distance and accuracy off the tee. Regardless of averaging almost 310 yards off the tee, that’s solely 56th on tour and while you mix it together with his 102nd rank in accuracy, you can begin to see the problem.
However it hasn’t stopped Capan from racking up two runner-up finishes — together with one final month on the Magnit Championship — and three different top-10s to safe himself “Tour Certain” standing.
Why hasn’t it stopped him? As a result of he took the driving force out of his bag for the previous few weeks main into the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
“Yeah, a number of the programs we performed have been a bit shorter or there was type of a run-out at 310 to the place a number of holes weren’t driver in any case, so I simply determined to take it out,” Capan mentioned Saturday after his third-round 67. “On the time I wasn’t hitting it that nice.”
However at a beefy Scarlet course structure, Capan has determined so as to add again the large stick again to the bag and it’s led to outcomes. Capan is averaging a ridiculous 334 yards off the tee this week — which continues to be someway solely thirteenth within the subject. He’s solely hitting 54 % of his fairways, however when he’s hitting the inexperienced 83 % of the time anyway, it’s onerous to argue his tee pictures aren’t placing him in a very good place.
“I’m undecided should you guys caught a couple of of [my drives today], it wasn’t all excellent right now but it surely’s been feeling higher and higher and this can be a course the place you undoubtedly want it,” Capan mentioned. He hit 7-of-14 fairways Saturday however averaged greater than 350 yards off the tee. “Throughout the couple weeks we had after Idaho earlier than Nashville I put a number of work in testing a pair issues, however primarily simply placing a bit work in attempting to tighten it up a bit bit as a result of I knew I would wish it final week, this week and in French Lick.”
Clearly the technique as Capan has already secured a PGA Tour card, however a win Sunday might launch him up the precedence rating for subsequent season, serving to him extra probabilities on the “Large Tour.”
