Michigan Golf Journal January 2018

J ackson native Brian Stuard isn’t the type of personality seeking to be a household name. Still, the idea of it happening one day doesn’t turn him off, either. “It would be nice, but it’s hard for me to think about considering myself at that level,” Stuard said before a fund raiser in Michigan in the fall. “I feel like I’ve got to win more, play better, to feel like I would deserve that kind of a thing.” Maybe 2018’s even- numbered year will be good for Stuard on the PGA Tour. After all, his two best full seasons came in 2014 and ’16, when his Tour earnings exceeded $1.8 million and $1.6 million, respectively. The highpoint came in May of 2016 when he won the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic, and earned his first career invitation to The Masters. The Zurich victory made Stuard the first Michigander to win on the PGA Tour since John Morse of Marshall won the Hawaiian Open in 1995. Stuard also has two pro career 2nd-place finishes – in even years 2010 and ’14 coincidentally. “This year (2017) was kind of a strange one,” he said, despite finishing the season ranked 6th in driving accuracy on Tour. “I started off alright and was making a bunch of cuts but not getting the high finishes I needed to get up there. Then I kind of lost my swing a little bit right about the time of the U.S. Open. I was hitting it bad and MICHIGANDER BRIAN STUARD ON THE PGA TOUR PGA Tour