T6 at DAP Championship Returns Merritt to PGA Tour

September 25, 2017 | 5 min.



BEACHWOOD, Ohio --- Nicholas Lindheim was leaking a little oil as he approached the fiinish line in the DAP Championship at Canterbury Golf Cllub on Sunday. But after making bogeys on the last two holes of the final round and getting himself into a playoff with Chesson Hadley and Rob Oppenheim, he redeemed himself with a birdie on the first extra hole (No. 18, the same hole he had just bogeyed). Lindheim's 28-foot putt on the playoff hole was going a little faster then he intended, but it was on line and went in. With that birdie, the 32-year-old veteran of multiple mini-tours claimed his second victory on the Web.com Tour and assured himself of a place on the PGA Tour for the 2017-18 season. 

Lindheim played his way onto the PGA Tour for the 2016-17 season by finishing in the top 25 on the Web.com Tour regular-season money list last year. His rookie season on the Big Tour didn't go too well, however, and he ended the '16-17 schedule No. 197 on the money list. That barely got him into the Web.com Finals, a four-tournament series that takes Nos. 126 through 200 from that year's PGA Tour money list and Nos. 1 through 75 from the Web.com regular-season money list. 

But none of that matters now. The $180,000 that Lindheim earned on Sunday moved him up 74 places on the Finals money list, from No. 77 to No. 3 (he has $183,020 after three of the four events), and the top 25 from the money list will get their PGA Tour Cards for 2017-18. Actually, the top 31 or 32 on the Finals money list will get their cards, because the top 25 from the regular season money list have already gotten their cards, and they don't count. Six or seven of them usually finish in the top 30 for the Finals; so that lets in a few extra players who aren't really in the top 25. (Only the PGA Tour could think of a system this convoluted.)

Hadley was one of the top 25 on the regualr-season money list, and he's also No. 1 on the Finals list, which will improve his status for the next year. That's why he wasn't all that disappointed about losing the playoff. He made $88,000 for a second-place tie. Oppenheim did, too, and that's $50,000 more anyone will need to be in the top 25 for the Finals.

Of the three guys who tied for first place with 72-hole totals of 272 (8 under), Oppenheim posted the best score on Sunday, a 3-under 67. Hadley shot 69, and Lindheim 71.

Martin Piller (the husband of LPGA Tour player Gerina Piller) turned in the best round of the day, a 65, and that elevated him 21 spots, from a tie for 25th to solo fourth, one stroke out of the playoff at 273. He made $48,000; so he's on his way to the PGA Tour, as well. And so is Bronson Burgoon, who shot 66 and finished fifth all by himself at 274. He made $40,000. 

Troy Merritt, the former Division II All-American from Winona State who then played two years at Boise State -- and was a Division I All-American his senior year -- could have tied Burgoon. But he bogeyed the par-3 17th hole, posted a 70 and tied for sixth with an aggregate of 275. He had to settle for $31,300, but that pushed his total for the Finals to $53,675. He's No. 11 on the Finals money list and is assured of a return to the Big Tour, where he has won once, the 2015 Quicken Loans Championship. (That gave him a two-year exemption, but the exemption ran out this year, and he was No. 149 on the 16-17 PGA Tour money list.)

Also in the Web.com Finals this year is Tom Hoge, the former TCU All-American from Fargo who set a record for the lowest score to par (11 under) in the Minnesota State Amateur while winning the tournament for the second year in a row (2010). Hoge, who ended up No. 167 on the PGA money list this year, has made the cut in all three tournaments during the Finals thus far, but hasn't cracked the top 15 in any of them. He's No. 39 on the money list with $23,798.

That means he could use about $15,000 (a top-15 finish would do that) in the last event of the Finals, the Web.com Tour Championship, which begins Thursday at the Atlantic Beach Country Club in Atlantic Beach, Fla.     


MEN'S PROFESSIONAL GOLF

Web.com Finals

DAP Championship

At Canterbury Golf Club

Par 70

Final results 


1. Nicholas Lindheim                        $180,000       64-69-68-71--272

T2. Robb Openheim                           $88,000        68-69-68-67--272

T2. Chesson Hadley                           $88,000        70-64-68-69--272

4. Martin Piller                                    $48,000         67-70-71-65--273

5. Bronson Burgoon                          $40,000          71-70-67-66--274

T6. Troy Merritt                                $31,300          73-65-67-70--275

T6. Joel Dahmen                              $31,300          69-66-68-72--275

T6. Matt Atkins                                 $31,300          64-68-69-74--275

T6. Chad Collins                              $31,300          70-70-68-67--275

T6. Keith Mitchell                             $31,300          67-71-67-70--275

T25. Tom Hoge                               $7,447.50      71-70-68-70--279

 

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