Michigan Amateur, Michigan Women’s Open and PGA Tour Rocket Mortgage: Two Weeks of Mich Tournament Coverage
The Michigan Golf Journal will provide daily coverage of the top golf events in Michigan the next two weeks, so come back to the website often to catch up on the action and results.
The Match Play portion of the 109th Michigan Amateur begins Wednesday June 24 at Boyne Highlands’ Heather Course, and concludes June 26.
June 29-July 1 is the Michigan PGA Women’s Open, followed by the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, July 2-5.
We will be onsite for all of it, bringing you inside information, action photos and player perspectives.
Here is a quick preview on each.
Michigan Am:
Defending champ: Ben Smith of Novi (Georgia Tech)
Two match play rounds each of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (semifinal and final rounds).
Host: The Heather at Boyne Highlands was the 2019 National Golf Course of the Year. It has hosted the Michigan Amateur prior in 1998, 2006, and 2011 (the 100th playing).
Par 72: 7,098 yards
Youngest players in the field: PJ Maybank III (age 15); Lorenzo Pinili (15); Justin Sui (15); Tyler Frechette (16); and Joseph Murdock (16).
Oldest player: Steve Maddalena (60) – who won the championship three times; 1980, ’90 and ’95.
More than 630 players entered the competition and 156 qualified to move on to Boyne.
Michigan PGA Women’s Open:
Host: Crystal Mountain Resort – Mountain Ridge
Par 72: 6,097 yards
Preview: Due to Covid-19 limiting the size of the field to 78 golfers allowed to register, which was done on a first-come, first-served basis this year, the tournament with have a different look to it. Normally the field is loaded with Symetra Tour players, an occasional LPGA Tour player and a smaller field of amateurs. This year is the opposite due to much less national travel taking place and the Symetra event at Sweetgrass in the U.P. was cancelled. Of the 78 golfers, amateurs make up 54 playing spots.
Prediction: with only 24 pros in the registered field (which can change slightly before the first tee shot is struck) it should be a race to the finish between 4-5 golfers: defending champ and still amateur Anika Dy of Traverse City, the 2016 champion Suzy Green of Ann Arbor, and Michigan’s two current LPGA Tour players – Liz Nagel (winner in 2018) of DeWitt and Sarah Burnham (native of Minn.) Both played golf at MSU for coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll, who is also in the field. Burnham is a past winner of the Connecticut Open and won two titles this spring on the Cactus Tour while stuck in Arizona during the height of Covid-19.
Green used to compete on the LPGA Tour and her victory in ‘16 made her the oldest winner ever at the Michigan Women’s Open, proving she’s still got plenty of game. She won the first tournament played in 1994, then again in 1999.
Rocket Mortgage Classic:
At least two Michigan natives in the field
An extremely limited number of media will be allowed to attend this year with no fans, and Michigan Golf Journal is one of the select few who will be onsite providing daily reports for rounds 1-4.
Jason Day committed on June 24 to join many other starts of the PGA Tour. He did not play in Detroit last year. Day’s most prestigious PGA Tour titles are the 2015 PGA Championship and 2016 PLAYERS Championship, which helped him conclude the 2016 season as the world’s top-ranked player. The affable Australian finished T5 at the 2019 Masters and represented the International Team over four consecutive Presidents Cups from 2011-2017.
World No. 17 Tony Finau recently committed to play in the 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club, marking his debut in Detroit. Finau, age 30, made his U.S. Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup debuts in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
A winner at the PGA TOUR’s 2016 Puerto Rico Open, Finau posted his three best major championship finishes – all top-5 results — within golf’s last seven majors. He was fifth at the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club (NY), T5 at the 2019 Masters and third in the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club. Finau, who turned pro at 17, posted three top-10 results in golf’s 2018 majors, combining his U.S. Open result with a T10 at The Masters and T9 at The Open Championship.
Among the Rocket Mortgage Classic’s early commitments, Finau is the third highest-ranking player in the tournament’s 156-player field, which will be confirmed as final on Friday, June 26.
Jackson native Brian Stuard (T5 last year) is qualified for the field, and Mt. Pleasant native/Traverse City resident Ryan Brehm is registered to compete. Brehm could be bumped if too many higher-ranked players ahead of him register last-minute.
“I’m confident Ryan will be in the field,” tournament executive director Jason Langwell said on June 23. “We as a tournament want to see him in the field one way or another… here in Detroit.
“I know Brian is pumped to be in it again. Brian and I were talking about the rough and the way the course is versus to last year. It will be a similar set up. Hopefully it will play firm and fast like it did on the weekend (last year).”
Langwell went on to explain that – despite lots of talk locally that the rough will be grown longer – the set up will be very close to last year, maybe with a little more grass in the rough. He indicated the tournament and the Tour want to wait for a second year of ShotLink data to be collected to have two years of data to evaluate before working with the Detroit Golf Club to decide if they bring in the fairways some or grow the grass longer, for example.
Finau’s commitment adds to earlier recommitments from notables in the field like:
- Patrick Reed– World No. 7, 2018 Masters champion and eight-time PGA TOUR winner.
- Bryson DeChambeau – World No. 11 and five-time PGA TOUR winner.
- Rickie Fowler– Five-time PGA TOUR winner and World No. 31
- Bubba Watson– The 2012 and 2014 Masters champion and 12-time PGA TOUR winner.
- Nate Lashley– Inaugural Rocket Mortgage Classic champion in 2019.
- PGA Tour Veterans like Davis Love III, Graeme McDowell, Charl Schwartzel, Vijay Singh and Brandt Snedeker.
