Tag: Minor League Golf Tour

Golf Yahtzee: Mini-tour player makes at least one birdie, bogey, double, triple, quad for best 75 you’ll ever see

The definition of grinding it out.

Shane Bacon has made the ‘psycho scorecard’ famous. If you’re unaware of the social media phenomenon, a psycho scorecard is when a golfer fills their card with nothing but color. Birdies, bogeys, doubles, eagles, and every other score that makes the card look like a rainbow.

Well, this mini-tour player took the psycho scorecard to the next level.

Cameron Starr teed it up in a Minor League Golf Tour event at The Florida Club, and his round couldn’t have started worse.

Bogey, triple, double, bogey, and a quad on his first five holes.

Then, he turned it on.

Starr played Nos. 6-13 at 7 under, including an eagle on the par-5 8th. He’d play his last five holes at even par.

A gutsy, gritty, and unbelievable 75. Tiger Woods would be proud.

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Lexi Thompson preps for LPGA restart against the men, finishes second

Ahead of the LPGA restart, Lexi Thompson finished second in a Minor League Golf Tour event.

Lexi Thompson’s preparation for the LPGA restart included two stops on the Minor League Golf Tour against men.

On Tuesday, Thompson went toe-to-toe with Sunny Kim at Plantation Preserve Golf Club. Kim pulled away with a birdie on the last hole to clip Thompson by one in the two-day event.

Kim finished at 7-under 135 to earn his 71st title on the Minor League Tour. Thompson, who played from a shorter set of tees, closed with a 66 to finish at 136. Thompson won $1,124 for her efforts.

The 11-time LPGA winner actually won a Minor League Golf Tour event in 2011 at age 16 on the course she grew up on, Eagle Trace in Coral Springs, Florida. She played her first MLGT event in 2009.

Last week, Thompson finished tied for seventh at The Falls Club, carding a 69. Kim won that one too, posting a 63.

The LPGA will host a tournament for the first time since mid-February next week at the Drive On Championship at Inverness Club. Thompson is among the headliners of the event, along with Nelly Korda, Jessica Korda and Danielle Kang.

Thompson last competed on the LPGA at the new Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio where she tied for 15th.

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Florida’s Minor League Golf Tour hoping to resume May 19

The MLGT will play a full schedule through June and July rather than take a 2- to 3-week summer vacation.

After canceling its entire April schedule due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Minor League Golf Tour — based in Jupiter, Florida — has now dropped its first three tournaments in May. As a result, COVID 19 permitting, the MLGT will play a full schedule through June and July rather than take a 2- to 3-week summer vacation.

While Palm Beach County has allowed municipal, public and privately-run courses to reopen, the MLGT was unable to comply with one of the 28 restrictions, according to owner-operator Scott Turner, the one which says “all league, clinic, camp, youth and other organized activities remain suspended.”

“We hope now that when Phase 2 is initiated,” by mid-May or early-June, Turner added, “we will be able to resume normal play.”

Tournaments already canceled this month: May 4-5, Indian Spring CC, Boynton Beach; May 8, St. Lucie Trail GC, Port St. Lucie; and May 12, Abacoa GC, Jupiter. Next on the schedule: May 19-20, the Fazio course at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens.

Its last tournament prior to shutting down was the memorable performance by Sunny Kim of Queens, N.Y., on March 24 at The Fox Club when he scored 12 under par 59. It was the first time in the MLGT’s 17 seasons that anyone broke 60.

According to its website, the Minor League Golf Tour was founded in 2004 by Jay Slazinski to give players a chance to fill out a yearlong schedule, and boasts Brooks Koepka as one of its alumni.

A total of 88 Players that have played on the Minor League Golf Tour are exempt for the 2020 PGA Tour or Korn Ferry Tour.

For more information, go to www.minorleaguegolf.com.

As mini-tour golf goes on, Sunny Kim becomes second player in a week to post 59

Sunny Kim posted 59 Tuesday at a Minor League Tour event at Fox Club in Palm City, Florida. It was the tour’s lowest round ever on the tour.

Live golf is scarce these days, but at least two players who have teed it up in mini-tour events this month have made the most of the opportunity. Remarkably, the two players recorded a round of 59 within six days of each other, playing on the Minor League Golf Tour and the Outlaw Tour, respectively.

Sunny Kim’s round of 59 went down on Tuesday at a Minor League Tour event at Fox Club in Palm City, Florida. It was the tour’s first round of 59 and was fired – fittingly – by the tour’s career money leader. The day started out ordinarily enough, with Kim only making two birdies in his first five holes. He made four straight from Nos. 7-10. Kim logged two more at Nos. 12 and 13, then played his final three holes in 4 under. He made eagle at the par-4 16th (which was playing 440 yards) and another eagle at the par-5 18th.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Kim was nine back entering the final round of the 36-hole event and ended up winning by three. Interestingly, on the same day Kim fired 59, he was also celebrating his 31st birthday.

Kim, who hails from Queens, New York, turned professional in 2007. He Monday qualified into the 2010 John Deere Classic, and has three career Korn Ferry Tour starts.

As for the other sub-60 round? Jared du Toit brought in a closing 59 on March 19 at the Outlaw Tour’s Western Skies Classic at Western Skies Golf Club in Gilbert, Arizona. Du Toit had nine birdies (seven of them on the back nine) and an eagle on the par-70 layout.

The 59 followed rounds of 64-68 and left du Toit at 19 under for 54 holes, good for a tie for first with Wil Bateman and Carson Roberts. Bateman won in a playoff.

Du Toit, a Canadian, turned professional in 2017 after finishing his college golf career at Arizona State (he played for two years at Idaho before that). The 24-year-old made earlier 2020 headlines for winning the PGA Tour Latinoamerica Qualifying Tournament in January. He missed the cut at the Estrella del Mar Open earlier this month, his only other start on that Tour in 2020.

Mini-tour golf remains some of the only professional competition the sport has seen these past two weeks. The Cactus Tour, a women’s mini tour based in Arizona, hosted an event in Moon Valley, Arizona, last week that Anna Nordqvist, an eight-time LPGA winner, won in a playoff. The Eggland’s Best Tour is also still conducting women’s events in Florida, though after this week, there is not another event until May 6.

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