Frankie Capan just put his driver back in the bag this week.
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Frankie Capan III has done just about everything on the Korn Ferry Tour this season, including earning his PGA Tour card last week as he sits 15th on the tour’s points list, without a win.
But this week in Columbus, Capan (pronounced SAP-en), is in a position to add the missing piece to Korn Ferry’s penultimate 2024 event. Capan leads the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship by one shot heading into the final round.
Understandably, Capan’s game has been firing on all cylinders this week as he is second in the field, missing just nine greens in 54 holes and tied for fourth with 14 birdies on the tough Ohio State University Golf Club Scarlet course.
One of the reasons Capan pointed out that his strong game this week is driving. He ranks 90th on the Korn Ferry Tour in overall driving, including distance and accuracy off the tee. Despite averaging nearly 310 yards off the tee, that’s only 56 on the tour and when you combine that with his 102nd accuracy rating, you can start to see the problem.
But that hasn’t stopped Capan from posting two runner-up finishes – including last month at the Magnet Championship – and three more top-10s to secure his “Tour Bound”.
Why didn’t it stop him? Because he pulled a driver out of his bag a few weeks ago leading up to the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.
“Yes, most of the courses we played were short or there were 310 outs where most of the holes were not driveable, so I just decided to pull it out,” said Capan on Saturday. after a third round of 67. “At that time I wasn’t hitting that well.”
But in the structure of the beefy Scarlet course, Capan decided to put the big stick back in the bag and it led to results. Capan averaged a ridiculous 334 yards this week — still tied for 13th in the field. He only hits 54 percent of his fairways, but when he hits 83 percent of the time on the green, it’s hard to argue that his tee shots aren’t putting him in good shape.
“I’m not sure if you caught a few [my drives today]it wasn’t perfect today but I was feeling better and better and this is a lesson where you need it,” said Capan. He hit 7-of-14 fairways Saturday but averaged more than 350 yards off the tee. “In the few weeks we had after Idaho before Nashville I put a lot of work into testing a few things, but mainly putting in a little work to try to strengthen a little bit because I knew I was going to need it last week, this. At church and at French Lick.”
It’s obviously a strategy since Capan already has a PGA Tour card, but Sunday’s victory could put him in the spotlight next season, helping him get more opportunities on the “Big Tour.”
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