Brian Stuard is the highest earning PGA Tour player the state of Michigan has ever produced.
The Jackson native climbed from Division 3 state champion at Napoleon High School, to Summit (now Horizon) League Player of the Year in 2005 playing college golf at Oakland University. He earned his first PGA Tour Card in 2010 and later won the 2016 Zurich Classic in New Orleans for a Masters invitation in 2017.
Stuard was playing No. 7 (his 16th hole) of the first round of THE PLAYERS Championship, when pro players started hearing that the event would be closing the gates and would not allow any more fans in the rest of the tournament.
That night as he tried to sleep after an opening round 2-under-par 70 (he had 5 birdies on his closing 9 holes), at 9:45 pm he read the text from the PGA Tour saying THE PLAYERS was cancelled. All PGA Tour events have since been postponed or canceled with the first possible return being May 21 at the Colonial in, coincidentally, Stuard’s new hometown of Fort Worth, Texas – with the Rocket Mortgage Classic next on the list in Detroit, May 28-31, unless the PGA Tour shuts them down.
Last year Stuard placed T5 at the Rocket Mortgage with rounds of 66-72-65-68 at Detroit Golf Club.
When we spoke on March 20 he was not practicing golf as much as he would during an active season, and was doing more things around the house that otherwise get neglected, like yard work and spring cleaning.
“Using this time as a little break to refresh and recharge the batteries, golf wise; get a little bit more mentally fresh for what’s probably going to be a very busy stretch,” he said about what should be a condensed late spring and summer Tour schedule with potentially two majors rescheduled. “I’m sure the players will want to get a lot of tournaments in this summer, if we can.
“When you see how this has affected every other sport, and every other person and every other job, I think it would have been a little selfish for us to keep playing when everybody else is going through all this,” he said about the PGA Tour’s cancelled events so far. “I think it made sense and was the right thing to do. (Pro) golf takes a back seat to what everyone else is struggling with; the country’s struggles – and the world. I think to miss a few golf tournaments is not as important as getting everyone safe and healthy.”
