As Frankie Capan III chased the lowest professional golf round in history, not only was hit math off but he couldn’t stop blinking.
“It was a really weird sensation, one that I’ve only felt two or three times before,” Capan said. “It’s like everything outside of exactly what I was looking at was blurry.”
Capan was so focused during Thursday’s opening round of the Korn Ferry Tour’s Veritex Bank Championship that he didn’t realize the 6,527-yard Texas Rangers Golf Club in Arlington, Texas, played to a par of 71. Capan thought it was 72, so once he reached 13 under through 16 holes, all he could think about was getting one more birdie and breaking the course record, set four years ago by Scottie Scheffler.
That 12th birdie never came, but much to Capan’s surprise, as the 24-year-old Minnesota native headed to scoring, he was informed that he had actually fired a 13-under 58.
Not enough to tie Cristobal del Solar and David Carey as the only pro golfers to shoot 57 in competition, but still sufficient in dethroning the current world No. 1 as course record-holder.
“Whenever you can beat that guy, especially nowadays, I mean, you’ve got to take advantage,” Capan said shortly after finishing.
Frankie Capan III had no idea he shot a 58 😳@frankiecapan @VBChampionship pic.twitter.com/suv16TTAer
— Korn Ferry Tour (@KornFerryTour) April 25, 2024
Back at his Dallas apartment by late Thursday afternoon, Capan’s full vision was slowly returning as he attempted via phone to put his round into context.
“It’s funny because it really didn’t feel all that special,” Capan said. “The number itself, yeah, it’s special, but I feel like I was just kind of hitting the ball where I was looking, hit a few nice shots and was able to capitalize on them and add them up at the end of the day.”
Capan’s day began at 4:15 a.m. local, as it takes about a half-hour to get from his place to the course and he had an 8:13 a.m. tee time. The previous evening, his mother, Charlynn, who has caddied frequently for her son as a pro, cooked dinner for Capan and his dad, Frank. When Capan arrived on the range to warm up, it was still dark outside.
“I couldn’t see where shots were going until I got to the top end of the bag,” Capan said.
Capan settled for an opening par, as his drive hit the green at the 348-yard first hole but bounded some 35 yards past. He then rattled off four straight birdies, from 10, 7, 12 and 15 feet, respectively.
“Everything was clicking,” said Capan, who later, at the par-5 ninth, stuck an 170-yard second shot to 4 feet and rolled in the putt for eagle.
From there, Capan did something that didn’t surprise his college coach at Florida Gulf Coast, Andrew Danna, who says of Capan, “At any time he can rattle off as many birdies in a row as you can possibly imagine.” Capan birdied each of his first seven holes on the back nine, including a 14-foot make at the par-4 13th, where Capan struck the flagstick with his 60-yard approach and had his ball knocked back to 14 feet. That was the longest putt he needed to make on his final nine.
Capan could’ve been lower through 16 holes, as he fumbled another chance on a short par-4, at the 319-yard seventh. With just 30 yards and plenty of green to work with, Capan could only chip to 12 feet. He missed the putt.
“That was most disappointing,” Capan said. “It was a basic chip that I typically would get up and down.”
After par at the par-4 17th, Capan found a fairway bunker off the tee at the par-4 finishing hole and had to lay up to 135 yards with 7-iron. At that point, he was in between clubs before deciding to go with a “smoked” gap wedge to a front pin. He tugged it slightly, missing the green, and then chipped to 8 feet.
“That last putt was a downhill, left-to-right slider,” Capan said. “I was thinking, I didn’t want to come all that way and end up shooting 60.”
Again, his math was off.
Capan sank the putt to card the seventh sub-60 score in KFT history, sixth in the last 372 days and third this season. Del Solar kicked off the low scoring two months ago with his 13-under 57 in the first round of the Astara Golf Championship, which was contested on the Country Club de Bogota’s Pacos Course, a par-70 layout that was playing at 6,254 yards – and at about 8,600 feet above sea level. The next day Aldrich Potgieter shot 59 on the same course.
Stephan Jaeger held the previous KFT record of 12-under 58, recorded at the 2016 Ellie Mae Classic. Five other 58s have been recorded on world-ranked tours – Jim Furyk (PGA Tour), Alex del Rey (Challenge Tour), Ryo Ishikawa (Japan Tour), S.H. Kim (Japan Tour) and Jason Bohn (Canadian Tour). Bryson DeChambeau had a 58 of his own last year at LIV Greenbrier.
Carey shot his 57 on the Alps Tour in 2019.
This wasn’t Capan’s first sub-60 round, either. He fired a 59 in the final round of his state high school championship at Tucson National to win by 10 shots.
Capan began his college career at Alabama before transferring to Florida Gulf Coast. He turned pro in 2022, yet he remained amateur through that summer. He then advanced through all four stages of Korn Ferry Tour Q-School, medaling at two of the sites, to earn his first KFT card last season. He finished No. 51 on the points list as a rookie. This season, Capan sits No. 30 in points, right on the bubble for earning a PGA Tour card at the end of the year. He had posted back-to-back top-10s entering this week’s start.
Now, he holds his first lead on the KFT, albeit only by three shots, as Trent Phillips carded 10-under 61. Last week’s winner, Tim Widing, is third at 9 under followed by John Pak and Cody Blick at 8 under.
“I thought the pins were fairly simple today, the wind was fairly simple, most of the tougher holes played downwind,” Capan said. “It’s no surprise that I finished and saw I was only leading by three.”
As he prepares for his second round, Capan knows backing up his 58 will be a challenge. Neither del Solar (fifth) nor Potgieter (T-20) won that week in Colombia, a testament to the low-scoring nature of the PGA Tour’s top developmental circuit.
For Capan, keeping his foot on the gas means forgetting about Thursday’s score and sticking to his mindset of boring golf.
“All I’m trying to do is hit this shot to the best of my ability,” Capan said, “and put it in a spot that sets me up for the next shot.”
He’d also welcome more of that blurred peripheral vision.