Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2017 - 23

AMY ANDERSON
LOCAL
GOLFERS
ON TOUR
BEN POLLAND
CLAYTON RASK
ERIK VAN ROOYEN
CAM WHITE
ROBERT BELL
DON CONSTABLE
TOM HOGE
TROY MERRITT
doing it for the foreseeable future. Even
though he no longer has fully exempt
status on the PGA Tour, the 47-year-old
Herron intends to play as many events as
he can through the end of 2019, and then
join Lehman (who won the 2017 Tucson
Open in March) on the PGA Tour
Champions circuit in 2020.
There are quite a few younger Minnesota
pros-and other pros with local
ties-who would love to follow in
the footsteps of Lehman, Herron or
even Cameron Beckman, a three-time
PGA Tour winner from Burnsville who
missed the cut in last fall's Sanderson
Farms Championship, and has yet to
play in the 2017 season. Here's a look at
some of them.
Troy Merritt
Merritt was born in Osage, Iowa, before
moving to Idaho, then to Fridley. A twosport
star (basketball and golf) at Spring
Lake Park High School, he concluded his
senior year by finishing sixth at the state
high school golf tournament.
After achieving Division II All-American
status at Winona State as a sophomore,
he transferred to Boise State to
play his last two years of college golf. He
won the last five tournaments of the regular
season as a senior, and led the nation
with a scoring average of 69.2.
Merritt turned pro in 2008, won on the
Nationwide-now Web.com-Tour the
following year, and then led the old PGA
Tour Q-School through all six rounds
in December of 2009 to earn a spot on
the Big Tour. In 2015, he claimed his first
PGA Tour victory at the Quicken Loans
National. As a result, he is fully exempt
through the end of the 2016-17 season.
Tom Hoge
Although he's from Fargo, N.D., the
former Texas Christian University AllAmerican
is a two-time Minnesota State
Amateur champion (2009 and '10). He
turned pro in 2011 and achieved fully
exempt status for the PGA Tour, but finished
No. 145 on the money list for the
2015-16 season. So he is now partially
exempt for the PGA Tour, but also has
status on the Web.com Tour.
Donald Constable
A former state high school champ from
Minnetonka, Constable finished second
to Hoge in the 2010 State Am at Dacotah
Ridge, and then won the crown the
next year at White Bear Yacht Club. He
turned pro right after completing his eligibility
at the University of Minnesota in
the spring of 2012, and made it through
PGA Tour Q-School that fall.
That didn't guarantee him all that
many starts the next year, however, and
he didn't keep his tour card. In recent
years, he's played wherever he could and
done well in some state and Dakotas
Tour events, such as the 2016 Minnesota
Golf Champions tournament, which he
won in 2014 and nearly won again in
2016.
Last fall, he shot a 261, 27 under par,
and tied for second in the First Stage of
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Summer 2017 MINNESOTAGOLFER
23
PHOTO BY MARK BRETTINGEN
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Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2017

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