Mike Sweeney is an aspiring PGA Tour professional based out of South Florida. In 2023, he gained publicity after being known as the man who slept in his car and rapped on Spotify to fund his golf dream.
Monday Q wrote an article about his story last year and put his Venmo handle in the story. Sweeney received a life changing amount of money to get him through the 2023 season on PGA Tour Canada.
Sweeney’s golf game has improved tremendously since 2023 and finds himself on edge of the cut line in 2024. It has been weeks and weeks of missing the cut by one stroke.
Mike Sweeney sits down with Averee Dovsek on the “Why You Suck At Golf!” podcast to learn more about his mental struggles, financial burdens and what is on the horizon moving forward into the Summer.
Justin Doeden forgot the saying cheaters never win.
The 28-year-old pro on Monday confessed he cheated last week at PGA Tour Canada’s Ottawa Open.
He stood accused of changing his score on the final hole of his second round at Eagle Creek Golf Club from a 7 to a 5 after his card already had been signed by his playing partner. That brazen act meant his incorrect score would be good enough to make the 36-hole cut by one stroke at T-60. It also would have prevented 13 other players from making the cut and deprived them of earning a paycheck for the week.
“At scoring, the player who kept Doeden’s card confirmed his scores and signed it,” French wrote. “Doeden then asked for the card, saying he wanted to double-check some things. Not thinking anything of it, the player handed the card to Doeden and left the scoring area. When he gave it to Doeden, the 18th hole showed a 7.”
Players first noticed something wasn’t right about his 36-hole total of 3-under during lunch and reported it to tournament officials who discovered Doeden’s use of an eraser to change his score. Doeden withdrew from the tournament during the officials’ investigation. He initially did not respond to a request for comment from French.
On Monday, he confessed he cheated in a social media post and asked for forgiveness.
“I am here to confess of the biggest mistake I have made in my life to date,” he wrote. “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.”
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 @acaseofthegolf1
Doeden, who played collegiately at the University of Minnesota and has competed in one event each on the Korn Ferry and PGA Tours while spending the bulk of his time on PGA Tour Canada and PGA Tour Latinoamerica, likely will be suspended under the Tour’s catch-all of “conduct unbecoming” but we’ll never know.
“Per Tour policy, the matter — and any related disciplinary action — will be handled internally,” a spokesperson for the PGA Tour told the media.
Regardless, Doeden will wear the scarlet letter of being a cheater, and that will be an enormous burden for him to bear.
Beginning in February 2024, the two third-level tours will merge under one umbrella.
Goodbye PGA Tour Latinoamerica and PGA Tour Canada, hello PGA Tour Americas.
Beginning in February 2024, the two third-level tours will merge under one umbrella as the PGA Tour continues to grow and develop its product. The restructure will aim to create a more efficient and competitive pathway for players looking to take the next step in their professional golf careers.
PGA Tour Americas will hold 16 events across Latin America, Canada and the United States from February-September, with up to 15 Korn Ferry Tour cards available, as well as numerous exemptions to various stages of PGA Tour Q-School.
“As we build on the rich golf history across Latin America and Canada, we are thrilled about PGA Tour Americas and the role this tour will play in preparing players for the next step in their professional golf journey,” said Korn Ferry Tour President Alex Baldwin.
So how will it all work?
Schedule
The full 2024 PGA Tour Americas schedule will be announced in September. Finalized details regarding eligibility, priority ranking, purses and points distribution will be announced closer to the inaugural event in February 2024. Here’s an outline:
The season begins in February with the Latin America Swing, which wraps in May.
Following that the PGA Tour Americas will host a mid-season Qualifying School and introduce a handful of PGA Tour University graduates.
The season will then continue with the North America Swing, where players will compete across Canada and the U.S. from June-September.
Eligibility for the Latin America Swing
Fields for the Latin America Swing (February-May 2024) will consist of 144 players. Those eligible to compete will include the top 60 players from the PGA Tour Latinoamerica points list from 2022-23 as well as the top 60 players on the PGA Tour Canada points list from 2023. Players can also qualify via the following routes (priority ranking to be announced):
2023 PGA Tour Q-School
Latinoamerica Dev Series
Highest finisher on the 2023 APGA season-long points list who is a member of the APGA Player Development program
Eligibility for the North America Swing
The top 60 players from the Latin America Swing will continue on to compete in the North America Swing (June-September 2024), where the field will increase to 156 players. The top 50 from the PGA Tour Americas Q-School as well as Nos. 6-20 from PGA Tour University will also be eligible. Players can also qualify via the following routes (priority ranking to be announced):
Open qualifying and sponsor exemptions
Korn Ferry Tour
Additional finishers Latin America Swing / PGA Tour Americas Q-School
Performance benefits
The top 10 finishers on the season-long PGA Tour Americas points list will earn Korn Ferry Tour membership. Five conditional Korn Ferry Tour cards are available to the top two finishers in the Latin America Swing and the top three finishers from the North America Swing.
The top 10 finishers on the PGA Tour Americas points list, the top two from the Latin America Swing and the top three from in the North America Swing will all earn exemptions to the Final Stage of PGA Tour Q-School.
The following players will all earn exemptions to the Second Stage of PGA Tour Q-School:
Nos. 11–25 on the PGA Tour Americas points list
Nos. 3–10 from the Latin America Swing
Nos. 4–10 from the North America Swing.
All remaining PGA Tour Americas members will earn exemptions to the First Stage of Q-School.
Why it makes sense
The Latinoamerica and Canada tours were essentially doing the same thing on a different schedule from two tours it was supposed to be feeding, the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour.
Aside from streamlining a confusing pathway to the Tour, the merge will also put all three levels – PGA Tour Americas, Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour – on the same operating schedule in a January–September/October window. From October–December, most PGA Tour players will compete in the fall series. Everyone else will enter Q-School to play for status and exemptions.
More benefits for solid play and an easier to understand system are improvements for both fans and the players. Time will only tell if this was the right move for the Tour, but in theory, it checks out.
Reiter started consistently hitting the ball more than 300 yards during his freshman year of high school, when he was 14.
As an 18-year-old playing on an exemption in a PGA Tour event, Charlie Reiter so impressed Jon Rahm with his clubhead speed that the Spaniard said he expected the lanky teen to hit it by him.
“He hits it far and when I mean far, I mean really far, like he can easily get it past me,” said Rahm, then the third-ranked player in the world, who was a member with Reiter at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, California. “He reminds me of Brandon Hagy (a Cal product and another TrackMan marvel); they’re both similar build, not the biggest guys, but they’re just fit and have a lot of power.”
During the second round of the 2018 CareerBuilder Challenge (now the American Express) Reiter averaged 348.5 yards off the tee in the second round on PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament Course, where he pounded two of the three longest drives recorded during the event’s first 54 holes. In the third round, he averaged 332.5 yards on a windy day around PGA West’s Stadium Course.
Reiter started consistently hitting the ball more than 300 yards during his freshman year of high school, when he was just 14 years old. And the prodigy’s golf story begins in infancy. His father, Mike, a skilled golfer who played on the mini-tours, used to put plastic clubs in Charlie’s crib. By age 4, Reiter won his first tournament.
Trophies began to pile up. When Reiter was 10 he competed in the Golf Channel Amateur Tour National Championship at PGA West.
Amateur Charlie Reiter reacts to his shot from the sixth tee during the third round of the CareerBuilder Challenge at the TPC Stadium Course at PGA West on January 20, 2018, in La Quinta, California. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
And now, finally, Reiter has a professional golf tour to play – at least for the rest of the year.
Reiter, who turned pro last fall after a summer that saw him play in the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur, rallied from four shots back at the start of the day Friday to win a U.S. qualifier tournament for the PGA Tour Canada. With a final-round 3-under 69 at Soboba Springs Golf Club in San Jacinto, California. Reiter is now fully exempt for the Canada tour that begins its season in June.
“Now I have a full schedule over the summer,” Reiter said after gaining full status for the Canada circuit. “I know what the summer will be.”
Reiter finished at 15-under 283, including a sizzling 64 in the third round, to edge Kyle Karazissis of La Quinta, California, by a single shot. Karazissis, a mini-tour golfer who also caddies at The Quarry in La Quinta, will be exempt on the PGA Tour Canada for the first five events, through that tour’s first reshuffle of exemptions.
Reiter’s victory turned on a two-shot swing on the final hole Friday. On the par 5, Reiter hit a good drive and reached the green in two shots, while Karazissis was forced to lay up and reached the green in three. Reiter had a routine two-putt from 20 feet for his birdie, but Karazissis three-putted from 35 feet, including a hard lip-out of his par putt from about 10 feet.
Reiter, who played college golf at both USC and the University of San Diego, fired rounds of 70, 70, 64 and 69 to win the qualifier. Karazissis stumbled to a 74 in the final round.
Reiter started his final round quickly with three consecutive birdies on the fourth, fifth and sixth holes, but he followed that with three bogeys in a row starting on the eighth hole.
The comeback started with a birdie on the 13th hole, then continued with a birdie 2 on the 16th hole. Reiter then completed the comeback with his birdie on the 18th.
Qualifying for the PGA Tour Canada was always part of Reiter’s plan for 2023 after he missed signup dates for Korn Ferry Tour qualifying last fall and also struggled for the money to sign up since he was still an amateur.
“I wasn’t thinking about (Korn Ferry qualifying) that quickly. I was just sort of so jumbled up with the U.S. Am and stuff like that,” Reiter said. “I just kind of forgot about it.”
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This year he has played in the Asher Tour, a mini tour mostly in California, while preparing for PGA Tour Canada qualifying.
“This is kind of the other first little way,” Reiter said of PGA Tour Canada qualifying.
Reiter, whose 2022 season also included a victory in the California State Amateur, has experience in professional events, having played in PGA Tour’s The American Express three times as an amateur, including when he was a senior at Palm Desert High School.
The PGA Tour Canada will play a 10-event schedule starting with the Royal Beach Victoria Open in Victoria, British Columbia, June 15-18. The tour will end its year with the Fortinet Cup Championship in September. The Order of Merit winner from the tour will earn status on the PGA Tour’s developmental Korn Ferry Tour in 2024.
“There are other opportunities,” Reiter added. “I’m playing in May up in Reno, the Reno Open, and if you win that, you get to play in the Barracuda (Championship on the PGA Tour in July). You never know.”
A win at the Barracuda Championship would put Reiter in more PGA Tour events in the following weeks.
“If I could play in three or four straight events, I would probably get conditional status,” Reiter said.
The PGA Tour remains the ultimate goal for the 23-year-old who is still living in San Diego for now. But his summer will also include U.S. Open qualifying, something he did last summer that allowed him to play his way into his first U.S. Open last June.
But on Friday, it was announced that the 2020 Mackenzie Tour – PGA Tour Canada has been canceled.
The PGA Tour runs the tour north of the border but announced that several issues were going to make holding the season impossible.
“Due to border restrictions, mandatory quarantines for those entering Canada and gathering restrictions in all provinces because of COVID-19, the Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada announced Friday that it is canceling its 2020 season,” the Tour said in a story online.
Mackenzie Tour Executive Director Scott Pritchard added: “With the safety of the communities we play in mind, as well as the well-being of our players, sponsors, tournament-organizing committees, volunteers and golf course staff, we came to the realization that this is the best decision for everyone involved.
“We also wanted to be considerate of our players and their desires to play golf. Understanding the complexities that this pandemic has caused, we knew it wasn’t fair to leave our members in positions that might prevent them from pursuing other playing opportunities elsewhere while waiting to see what transpired in Canada.”
The 2020 schedule had 13 tournaments, the most in Mackenzie Tour history.
Looking ahead to 2021, status for prior members will be based on Order of Merit results from the 2019 season, with the top-60 players exempt.
