The 3M Open's Monday qualifier at Victory Links drew 69 hopeful golfers, every one of them with their own chasing-the-dream story.
North Oaks amateur Frankie Capan shot a 7-under-par 65 in the morning's second group and waited all day only to discover it wasn't good enough to make a playoff for one of four spots in this week's PGA Tour event at TPC Twin Cities.
Louisville's Stephen Stallings chipped in three times in four holes and shot a career-best 61 that included a back-nine 29, just one day after a 75th-place finish at the tour's Barbasol Championship.
And then there was Michael Visacki, a Florida mini-tour legend of sorts who toiled seven years on those minor league mini-tours, Q Schools and PGA Tour Monday qualifiers.
He did so until he finally succeeded in one and played alongside Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson and Louis Oosthuizen, among others, in April's Valspar Championship that he had attended as a boy, just 90 minutes from his family's home in Sarasota, Fla.
A video of his thankful and tearful call to his father, Mike, that Monday after he qualified has been seen 1.6 million times on Facebook. It expressed in more than words his gratitude to both his dad and mom, Donna, for the sacrifices they made to get him there.
"You're trying to do something for a living and you know you have it and for all this time you've been getting knocked down," Visacki said. "Finally, to be able to stand back up and knock it out one time, it felt really nice."
That video was shown everywhere from ESPN and "Good Morning America" to TMZ. A big man nicknamed "Big Mike," Visacki received millions more mentions on his social-media accounts, particularly after he birdied his first hole that Thursday in the Valspar.