Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2022 - 26

merly Amy Anderson. She, like Hoge, is from North Dakota
(Oxbow), but she was a two-time Minnesota PGA Junior Girls
winner. Not long after she won the second of those titles, she
won the 2009 U.S. Junior Girls Amateur at Trump National
Bedminister, where Jordan Spieth was in the process of winning
the U.S. Junior Boys Amateur.
When she was Amy Anderson and playing for North Dakota
State, she set an NCAA record by winning 20 college tournaments.
Although she hasn't won on the LPGA Tour yet, she has
come close twice in majors, finishing second in the 2018 Evian
Championship and in the 2020 U.S. Women's Open. In that Open,
which was played at Champions Club in Houston in December,
because of Covid-19, Olson led by two with four holes to go, and
played the last four holes in even par. In most other years, that
would have been good enough to win, but A Lim Kim birdied the
last three holes to beat Olson by a single stroke.
Casey Danielson is also on the LPGA Tour this year, although
she has shown a tendency to miss the cut by one shot and has yet
to cash a check. Danielson, who won four consecutive Wisconsin
state high school titles, earned her place on the 2022 LPGA
Tour by winning twice and finishing third last year on the-then
Symetra (now Epson) money list, with $114,534 in 19 events.
The Epson Tour
There are now three players trying this year on the Epson Tour
to duplicate Danielson's success last year on the Symetra-Kate
Smith, Kim Kaufman and Betsy Kelly. Kelly, who won a state
high school championship in 2009, her senior year at Forest Lake,
won't get many chances to climb up the money list, because she
has only limited status.
Smith, who won a record five state high school titles while she
was at Detroit Lakes, is also a former MGA Women's Player of
the Year who capped off her senior year at Nebraska by winning
the 2021 Big Ten individual championship, thanks to a closing
round of 64.
Kaufman, a South Dakota native, was a regular on the LPGA
Tour from 2014 through 2017, and made $1.25 million while she
was at it, but she lost her fully exempt status in 2018, when she
dropped out of the top 100 on the money list. Since then, she has
spent most of her time on the Symentra/Epson Tour.
Sarah Burnham, the former state girls high school champ from
Wayzata, was on the LPGA Tour for the combined season of
2020-21. But she finished 116th on the money list ($89,057 in 16
events), and she needed to be in the top 100 to retain full status.
All Eyes on the Canadian Tour
Thomas Longbella, a former Gopher from Chippewa Falls-
who won a Wisconsin state high school Division 3 championTrey
Fessler
ship-is a player of interest to Minnesota golf fans who will be
competing on the PGA Tour Canada this summer. He tied for
eighth in a Q-School at Howey in the Hills, Fla. The first tournament
will be the Royal Beach Victoria Open, June 2-5, in
Victoria, B.C. Longbella will be joined on the Canadian Tour by
a former Minnesota state high school champ (Class AAA), Van
Holmgren. In 2013, when he was an eighth-grader playing for
Wayzata, the 5-foot-7 Holmgren made his first appearance at the
state tournament. Four years later, as a 6-7 senior, he won the
AAA title. A year later, he won the State Amateur.
Last year, as a senior at Florida Gulf Coast, he capped off the
regular season by winning the Atlantic Sun Conference individual
championship.
Now 6-8, Holmgren will have the distinction of being the tallest
player ever to compete on the Canadian Tour, after tying for
15th in a Q-School event in Weston, Fla.
While Holmgren was in the process of winning the state high
school tournament in 2017, a junior from St. Michael-Albertville
named Trey Fessler had spectators marveling at his prodigious
drives. He flew his tee shot into the left greenside bunker on the
18th hole at Bunker Hills (No. 9 West) on the first day of the
tournament, meaning the ball carried a little more than 340
yards. Just to prove it wasn't a fluke, he did the same thing again
the next day.
Fessler finished second to Holmgren that year, and he took
second again the next year, behind Tristan Nelko, yet another
state high school champion from Wayzata.
This summer, Fessler will be hoping to get as many starts as
possible on the PGA Tour LatinoAmerica. He qualified for that
tour last fall by finishing tied for 39th in a Q-School, but that
gives him only limited status, and he hasn't played in any tournaments
yet.
Editor's note: if you know a golfer with local ties striving to make it on one of the Asian, European
or U.S. pro tours, drop a line to editor@mngolf.org.
26
MINNESOTAGOLFER Summer 2022
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