Rocket Mortgage Monday Qualifier

Fieldstone Golf Club was selected by the Michigan PGA to host the Pre-Qualifier and the Qualifier for the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic. We have been looking forward to these events since November.

Yesterday, the morning of the Qualifier, my day was set to start with a 4:30 AM alarm. That alarm never had the chance to go off because I had already started a text exchange with Myles Sprague, Golf Course Superintendent, about 30 minutes prior regarding course damage from the thunderstorms and heavy rain that hit Fieldstone during Sunday night. Thankfully, damage was limited to some downed tree limbs, bunkers with some standing water and some general cleanup.

Play began right on time at 8:00 AM, starting from holes number one and number ten. Despite the rain, our agronomy team had the golf course ready to go.  As many of you know, Fieldstone is always in great shape, but I can tell you that it is at an entirely different level right now.  Greens were double cut and rolled yesterday morning and we certainly can’t keep the greens this fast for our guests on a typical day or some of them might not finish. 

54 players vied for four qualifying spots. Fieldstone had several Korn Ferry Tour Players in the qualifier field Monday morning, most notably, Wesley Bryan, a former RBC Heritage Classic (2017) Champion, and DJ Trahan who has two PGA Tour wins. That said, as the players began to finish it was clear that neither of these two players were going to be a contender for a spot in this year’s Rocket Mortgage field.  Low for the day was Kyle Reifers from Mooresville, North Carolina who carded a 64 and there was a four-person sudden death playoff for three spots that began on hole number one.  Hayden Spencer was eliminated on the first hole leaving Andy Spencer from Prairie Village, Kansas, Peter Kuest from Fresno, California and Brett Stegmaier from Palm Beach Gardens, Florida securing the final three qualifying spots. 

Additional information including leaderboard, player stats and course stats on today’s qualifier at Fieldstone Golf Club can be found at www.mipga.blugolf.com. Click on the Rocket Mortgage Classic Qualifier tab. 

In closing, it was a great day to be at Fieldstone Golf Club and we appreciate the opportunity to “kick off’ the Rocket Mortgage Classic week in metro Detroit.  Hope to see you all at Detroit Golf Club when play begins on Thursday morning. 

Chip Hierlihy, PGA Member Professional and General Manager of Fieldstone Golf Club