63's Get Kneen & Crawford into 3M Open

BLAINE -- Sundays are the glamorous part of the PGA Tour. The winner of whatever tournament is completed that day receives a check for more than $1 million, and anyone anywhere near the top of the leaderboard gets a nice chunk of change, as well. For example, on Sunday the winner of the Memorial Invitational was Jon Rahm, and he made $1,674,000. There were three players who tied for 10th, and they made $234,825 apiece. Erik Van Rooyen, the former University of Minnesota star, was part of a 10-way tie for 22nd, and he collected $78,120.

Mondays are more like the real world. That's when qualifying just to get into that week's tournament is held, and it is brutally hard to get through it. There are no big checks to be handed out, just a lot of really good players competing for very few spots in the regular tournament. A case in point was the qualifying for this week's 3M Open that was held Monday at Victory Links Golf Course. There were 60 guys for 2 spots.

Kurt Kitayama was one of the pros trying for a spot. He shot a 7-under-par 64 -- and didn't make it!

Jake Kneen, a 24-year-old former Michigan Junior champion who played college golf at Oakland University (he was the 2018 Horizon League Golfer of the Year), shot 63 and tied Aaron Crawford for medalist honors. Kneen birdied two of the first three holes and never let up. The highlight of his round came at the 10th hole, a 388-yard par 4 that he eagled.

He was 7 under after a birdie at the par-5 12th (579 yards). But he bogeyed the long, par-4 15th (467 yards). That was his only bogey, and he bounced back by making two birdies in the last three holes. 

Crawford, 25, was a regular on the Mackenzie (Canadian) Tour last year. He won the Major Series of Putting in 2018 at Legacy GC in Henderson, Nev., and has been something of a celebrity since then. Among other things, he appeared on The Golf Channel. On Monday, he made four birdies and no bogeys on each nine, beginning with birdies at the first (473 yards, par 4) and second (219 yards, par 3) holes. But he made four consecutive pars to start the back nine and needed birdies on four of the last five holes (14, 16, 17, 18) to avoid being in a playoff with Kitayama, or missing altogether.