Allow his family to introduce you to Frankie Capan III, Minnesota’s first PGA Tour member in more than a decade

Frankie Capan III was playing in a 9-hole tournament as a 6 year old when he missed a putt on No. 5 and his dad, Frank, jokingly told him he’d have to finish his round like Tiger Woods finished the 2002 PGA Championship.

“What’d he do?” Frankie asked.

It was a birdie-birdie-birdie-birdie finish for Woods that Sunday at Hazeltine National, though Frank left out the tiny detail that even those heroics weren’t enough for Woods to take down Rich Beem that weekend.

Frankie didn’t say another word to his dad for the remainder of the round, and proceeded to go birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle — one better than Woods — each a result of a lengthy putt.

As he walked off the green after the eagle, the little boy turned to his dad and, without so much as cracking a smile, asked if Tiger had ever done that.

“What 6-year-old does that and then says that?” Frank said.

That’s how Frankie Capan is wired. If you give him a challenge, he’s going to topple it.

As a 10 year old, Frankie, a very literal person at his core, raised a question to his father: “Why do kids say they’re going to try to do something?”

Huh? Frank needed some clarification.

“These kids always say, ‘I’m going to try to do this.’ … I don’t try to do anything. I do it,’” Frankie said. “I notice when kids try to do it, they usually don’t do it. Why don’t they just do it?”

“Whatever he does, he’s all in,” said Frankie’s mom, Charlynn, “There’s no backup choice.”

It’s why as remarkable a moment as it will be when the North Oaks native tees off at 5:10 p.m. Central on Thursday in the first round of the Sony Open in Hawaii for his first PGA Tour event as a card-carrying member of the top tour in men’s golf, it felt like a foregone conclusion to those closest to him.

“We know when Frankie puts his mind to something, he’s going to accomplish it,” said his sister, Elle. “And we know he’s been wanting this for his whole entire life, so we had no doubt that he would end up here one day.”

Now 25, Capan will be the first fully-exempt Minnesota native on Tour in more than a decade. But his arrival was always just a matter of time.

“It was always a matter of when, not if,” said his sister, Erica. “It’s been really cool to see him live out his dreams, and what we always knew was going to happen.”

‘ATHLETICS CHASED HIM’

One of Charlynn’s favorite photos is one of 4-year-old Frankie at a friend’s birthday party in River Falls, Wis.

“They’re doing a pinata. And his intensity swinging at that pinata just cracks me up,” she said. “All the other kids are like, ‘What is wrong with this kid?’ ”

There was no doing anything at less than 100 percent. Charlynn recalled when Frankie would get home from half-day kindergarten and his sister was napping, mom and son would strap on shoulder pads and do battle.

“We would go hard in the yard,” Charlynn said.

When Frankie would attend playdates, and Charlynn often would call her husband shortly after to inform him, “Hey, we’re not invited back to that house.”

“Because he’s just intense,” she said.

Finally, at their Arizona home, Capan found suitable neighbors to play with in the Hattens, Hogan and Hayden. Hogan is currently the long snapper for the Detroit Lions, while Hayden is a receiver in the Canadian Football League.

The Capans weren’t going to put a cap on their son’s competitiveness. Their only rule about sports was one at a time. So when it was golf season, it was golf season. When football rolled around, the clubs were put away.

The parents wanted to ensure their children’s plates weren’t overloaded.

Golf and football remain Capan’s two favorite sports — he’s a diehard Vikings fan — but he dabbled in others. He had no interest in soccer until he randomly picked up the sport when he was 11 years old because his friends started to play it during recess.

“I thought, ‘What is going on with this kid?’ … He’d come home, grab some food and he would kick around the soccer ball until he went to bed at night. He’d just kick it,
Frank said. “Even in the dark. He’d go find lights and just kick it and catch it. He’d have me kick it and catch it. For hours, and hours and hours and hours.

“The next thing you know, he’s playing soccer and his middle school team is winning the state championship. And they’re like, ‘How long has your kid played soccer?’ I said, ‘He’s never played organized soccer.’ ”

Frank was presumed a liar.

“He didn’t chase athletics,” Frank said. “Athletics chased him.”

MATURATION

Frank is positive you will not find a cleaner set of golf clubs than the ones in Frankie’s bag. Walk into the closet of his Dallas home, and you’ll find more of the same. Everything is color-coded and laid out to certain specifications.

“My mom is a very clean person, so we all grew up being very neat,” Elle said, “but he was on his own level, in a good way.”

“I think that’s what makes him great at what he does,” Erica said. “He’s very particular about things, so I feel like that helps his golf game, because all of the details really matter to him.”

Charlynn caddied for Frankie during his meteoric rise through PGA Tour Q-School in the fall of 2022, ultimately Frankie’s ticket to the Korn Ferry Tour. She picked up the bag again in the middle of the 2023 season, Frankie’s first on the Korn Ferry Tour. That season ended in slight disappointment when Frankie didn’t finish high enough to punch his ticket to the PGA Tour.

His agent, Terry Reilly, considered it a “blessing in disguise.”

“Part of me was like, ‘You know, I’m not 100 percent sure it’s the best thing for him to go from zero to 60,’ ” Reilly said. “I love that gradual, 10 mile an hour gradation upward. Because then you know how fast your car goes and you know how to handle it.”

Frankie himself noted how much he learned much about himself and what works for him during that second year on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he earned a victory and finished third in the season-long standings.

Part of his evolution was learning to let go.

“He’s learning how to control the controllables, and let go of some of the uncontrolnables,” Frank said. “As he’s maturing through that, it’s allowing him … to go back to his happy spot and play, and not get too caught up in that stuff that’s just not relevant or applicable.”

For example, at the end of the 2022 tour schedule, when the 30 Korn Ferry Tour grads were celebrating their promotion to golf’s top tour, Frankie was within sight, working on his game on a nearby putting green.

“The Bible says we reap what we sow, and he enjoys sowing,” his father said. “In our family, we enjoy sowing, so you sow. You invest. You enjoy each moment, good or bad. You learn from it, move forward and keep learning.”

‘BE A LIGHT’

One potential adjustment to PGA Tour life figures to be the personalities. At the highest level, there can be less sharing of information, less encouragement and less camaraderie. But that won’t come from Capan’s end.

The entire family savors the relationships generated through the sport. When Frankie was a little kid having a bad day at the course, his dad called out his son’s sour attitude. Frankie revealed his poor play to be the source of his frustration.

“I said, ‘Frankie, that’s fine. You want to have a better score, hit better shots. And you can work on that afterwards. But that doesn’t mean you ruin (other people’s) day,’ ” Frank recalled. “We’ve always been that way. We always say love God, love others. We tend to respect people, encourage them.”

By many accounts, Frankie embodies that approach. It’s what drew him to Reilly, a 30-plus year veteran agent in the game. His first client was John Daly. An executive at Wasserman, his client list includes Tony Finau, Ludvig Aberg, Rickie Fowler and Jason Day. Reilly has reached the point in his career where he can pick who he wants to work with.

When Capan won the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball championship in 2017, Reilly leaned over to someone he was with and said, “I just like that kid’s aura.”

Reilly aims to work with players who want to do good in the world beyond putting a ball in a cup.

“I think he has this self belief that God put him here for a different reason, and it’s not just to win golf tournaments,” Reilly said. “But that’s part of the tool box that’s going to allow him to do great things in this world.”

It’s why Reilly noted it’s been so easy to line up corporate sponsors for Capan. Everyone who meets the golfer wants to be aligned with him.

“He’s very humble, and that’s something that I admire about him,” Erica said. “He has all these incredible accomplishments, and he’s going to continue to make more, and he’s just stayed true to himself.”

It falls in line with Charlynn’s mantra that she consistently echoes to her son: “Be a light.”

Be positive, be encouraging, be grateful — no matter the result.

When Frankie was little, Charlynn would never ask what he shot at a tournament. Instead, she would ask him to describe his favorite shot.

“He would go into incredible detail. ‘Oh, mom, on hole seven, I took a five iron, I had to go through trees, and blah, blah, blah,’ ” Charlynn recalled. “I would just sit there, listen and smile. And so, for us, it’s more reinforcing the positive of the day.”

Keep it light, keep it fun. It’s something Capan’s swing coach, Craig Waryan, instilled in Capan early in his career with many fun, competitive drills.

On the final hole of the final stage of Q School in 2022, Capan drove the ball into the rough. He walked off the tee box at an accelerated pace. To slow him down, Charlynn chucked a water bottle in his direction. He caught it, and the two tossed the bottle back and forth on the way to his ball.

Capan hit his ensuing approach shot to within 10 feet and made the birdie putt.

“And then I could just cry and be like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ ” Charlynn said. “He’s very simple. If he could just have fun, his instincts are there.”

“The more he matures, he migrates back to being a 6 year old in how he plays the game,” his father added. “The more he gets back to being a 6 year old, the better he plays.”

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