First Time out as a Pro, Flanagan Wins by 10

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WEST ST. PAUL -- In the old days, 2010 for example, when a tournament golfer pulled out an iron on a 285-yard par 4, you knew he was laying up. 

That is no longer the case. 

On Sunday afternoon, Angus Flanagan, the 21-year-old University of Minnesota All-American from Woking, England, playing in his first tournament as a professional, arrived at the ninth tee at Southview Country Club with a nine-stroke lead in the Tapemark Minnesota PGA Pro-Am. He had started the round at No. 10; so this was his last hole. 

The tee for No. 9 was up 50 yards, as it usually is on Sunday at the Tapemark, and the hole was playing 286 yards. It's been that way for more than 20 years, because tournament officials want players to try to drive the green at the last hole. It makes for a more dramatic finish. As it turned out, Flanagan had already taken all of the drama out of the contest for first place. He was the last pro on the course, and he was 14 under par. Eric Chiles, who shot 65 on Sunday, was in the clubhouse, and in second place at 5 under. 

It was just a question of what Flanagan's winning margin was going to be. He certainly didn't need to risk hitting the ball into the water 15 yards in front of and to the left of the green, or out of bounds, which is to the right.  

In recent years, players with comfortable leads -- Don Berry (2014),  Ryan Helminen (2015, '17), Erik Van Rooyen (2016) and Chris Meyer (2020) -- have hit a 7 iron or a 6 iron off the tee and then a sand wedge or a 60-degree wedge to the green.

It appeared that Flanagan would do the same thing when he grabbed an iron on the ninth tee -- except that it wasn't a 6 or a 7. Instead, he had a 3-iron, and he proceeded to hit towering shot that, with the aid of about a 10-mph wind, landed at the front of the green and rolled to a stop pin high, 30 feet left of the cup. From there, he two-putted for a birdie -- and a 10-stroke victory.

That hole epitomized the 2021 Tapemark. Flanagan dominated the tournament from the beginning with a combination of power and precision. His final-round of 4-under-par 67 gave him a 54-hole total of 198, 15 under. That was one off the record, held jointly by Berry and Helminen, but his 10-shot margin of victory on a weekend when thick rough, tricky pin placements and windy conditions made scoring difficult was a record. 

The victory was worth $5,000.

Chiles, a teaching pro at Chaska (the 2013 Minnesota Section Teacher of the Year), was the only player to shoot a score lower than Flanagan's on any of the three days. His valedictory 65 gave him a 208. Jesse Nelson and Derek Stendahl finished one behind him, at 209, tied for third. Nelson closed with a 68, Stendahl with a 69. 

Berry, a seven-time Tapemark champion, and Brent Snyder, the reigning Minnesota PGA Section Player of the Year, were next at 209, tied for fiftth. The 2020 champ, Meyer, and four-time champ Helminen were among the eight players tied for eighth at 214. 

Flanagan began the day with an eight-stroke lead, at minus 11, but he bogeyed two par-3's on the back nine, the 175-yard 10th and the 156-yard 15th. Meanwhile, Berry, playing ahead of him, was 2 under for the day and 4 under for the tournament. So the lead was down to five shots.

"Yeah, I was aware of that," Flanagan said afterward, "and I wasn't thrilled. But I still had all of the par-5's ahead of me."

And he was pretty sure he could take advantage of them, which he did -- and then some.

On Friday, Flanagan had played the Southview's four par 5's in 4 under. On Saturday, he played them in 3 under. On Sunday, he played them in 6 under!

At the 490-yard 17th, he hit a 6 iron second shot onto the green -- into the wind -- and two-putted for a birdie. At the 481-yard 18th, he hit a 340-yard tee shot and a wedge from there to 20 feet. The putt was a fairly nasty little double-breaker, but Flanagan made it for an eagle 3. 

Suddenly, his lead was back up to eight.

After making pars on the first three holes on the front side, the reigning Minnesota State Open and Minnesota Golf Champions champion hit a 9-iron second shot to the 470-yard, par-5 fourth hole for another two-putt birdie. He got a little bit lucky at the sixth (476 yards, par 5), where his 4 iron second shot landed just to the right of the right greenside bunker and bounced dead left -- onto the green. That left him 10 feet from the cup, and he made the putt for his second eagle of the day, and his fourth eagle of the tournament. 

His wedge shot from a less-than-great lie in the left rough at the seventh hole (371, par 4) came up short of the green, and cost him a bogey. But he got that stroke back when he drove -- 3-ironed? -- the ninth green and two-putted for another birdie. 

Flanagan was under par on five holes Sunday. He two-putted three of them for birdies, and one-putted the other two for eagles.

When asked how far he hits his driver, he said: "Right around 300 in the air, and then maybe 20 yards of roll."

"But downhill and downwind," noted his caddie -- and former Gopher teammate -- Peter Jones, "it's more like 350."

Flanagan had demonstrated that on Saturday when he drove the green at the 363-yard, par-4 eighth hole at Southview. 

As for his 3 iron, that normally goes about 245 -- in the air.

Making the Tapemark his first victory could be a good omen for Flanagan. It was the first tournament that another former Gopher, Erik Van Rooyen, won in 2016. He has gone on to win on the Sunshine (South African) Tour, the European Challenger Tour, and the European Tour. He made the equivalent of more than $2 million on the European Tour in 2019, and he now has full status on the PGA Tour. He has been as high as No. 40 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

The Tapemark was also one of the first tournaments that Tom Lehman won, in 1990, two years before he gained full status on the PGA Tour, where he would go on to win five times. In 1996, he won the British Open and was the No. 1-ranked player in the world at the end of the year.

During the presentation ceremony on Sunday, it was pointed out that Flanagan's winning score was lower than those of Van Rooyen and Lehman. Van Rooyen won by five shots with an aggregate of 200. Lehman put together a 202 in '90, and had to go into a playoff with Dale Jones, whom he subdued with a birdie on the second extra hole (No. 11).  

Flanagan will begin his journey to what he hopes will be full status on the PGA Tour next week. Having ended the 2020-21 college season as the No. 11 player in the PGA Tour Rankings, he earned full status on the new Forme Tour, which will sponsor eight events this summer. The first of them, the L&J Golf Championship, will be played in Watkinsville, Ga., June 23-26, at Jennings Mill CC. 

Flanagan will be there.

The Forme schedule will conclude with the Tour Championship, Sept. 7-10 in Ringoes, N.J., and the top five players on the money list at the end of the season will gain full status on the Korn Ferry Tour for 2022. 

Flanagan is also planning to take advantage of a break in the Forme schedule to get back here to defend his crown in the Minnesota State Open.

In addition to the college tournaments he played this winter and spring (he won two of them), he played for the Great Britain & Ireland side in the Walker Cup Matches in early April. Because of that, he can get into European Tour events this year, and he hopes to play in a couple of them. 

As dominant as Flanagan was this weekend, his team -- Flanagan, Rick Lemke, Cory Grimsrud and Matt Clark -- could not hold their lead on Sunday. The team of Savannah Smith, Cindy Irwin, Teri Boutin and Janelle Darling came from 10 shots behind by going 24 under and finishing at  minus 58. Flanagan's team tied Berry's team -- Berry, Shaun Irwin, Scott Grausnick and Bill Sullivan -- for second, one behind the winners at minus 57. 

Stendahl was the low Senior Professional with his 209, and Lisa Grimes was the low Woman Professional at 221. Colin Kinsel, a Southview member and a two-time club champion, won the Amateur Division for the third time with a total of 215 (71-72-72). Tyler Wood and Sam Udovich, the St. Croix Lutheran eighth-grader who won the National Drive, Chip & Putt 12-13 Division championship at Augusta National in April, tied for second at 219.

(Udovich is no longer 12 or 13. He's 14. But he was 13 in the fall of 2019, when he qualified for the Drive, Chip & Putt, and he was still 13 last April, when the National Finals were supposed to be held. They couldn't be held at that time, because of the Covid 19 pandemic, and had to be postponed for a year.) 

Tapemark Minnesota PGA Pro-Am

At Southview Country Club

Par 71, 6,138 yards          

West St. Paul

Final results 

Professionals

1. Angus Flanagan        $5,000             66-65-67--198

2. Eric Chiles                 $3,000             69-74-65--208

T3. Jesse Nelson          $1,750             72-69-68--209

T3. Derek Stendahl       $1,750             69-71-69--209

T5. Don Berry                   $950             71-69-72--212

T5. Brent Snyder              $950             74-68-70--212

7. Thomas Campbell        $750             70-71-72--213

T8. Chris Meyer                $472            71-70-73--214

T8. Andy Smith                 $472             71-71-72--214

T8. Kyle Scanlon               $472            70-70-74--214

T8. Ryan Helminen            $472            73-70-71--214

T8. Mike Barge                   $472            70-74-70--214

T8. Brian Hills                     $472            70-69-75--214

T8. Josh Whalen                 $472            71-72-71--214

T8. Grant Shafranski           $472            69-73-72--214  


Amateurs

1. Colin Kinsel                          71-72-72--215

T2. Sam Udovich                      69-76-74--219

T2. Tyler Wood                         69-73-77--219
   
4. Jordan Anderson                  72-79-71--222

5. Bradley Wohlers                    77-70-76--223


Teams 

                                                            Sunday      Total    Pro's Check

1. Smith/Irwin/Darling/Boutin                  -24             -58           $625

T2. Flanagan/Lemke/Grimsrud/Clark     -13             -57           $400

2. Berry/Irwin/Grausnick/Sullivan            -20            -57           $400 

4. Exsted/Roberts/Schourweiler/Long     -20            -56           $250

5. Meyer/Lethert/Lovegreen/Fronk          -18            -54           $200