Golf course architect Pete Dye probably didn’t envision anyone driving the par-4 13th hole.
Golf course architect Pete Dye probably didn’t envision anyone driving the par-4 13th hole when he designed TPC Louisiana with a back tee at nearly 400 yards long.
But no one told Ryan Brehm, who flirted with the second ace in PGA Tour history on a par 4. (Andrew Magee at the 17th at TPC Scottsdale is the only one to do so.) Brehm, whose lone win is at the 2022 Puerto Rico Open, took dead aim and launched a sweeping draw (191 ball speed and an apex of 123 feet). CBS’s Frank Nobilo wondered if it would clear the final bunker.
“Oh, it carried,” Colt Knost, who was walking with the group, confirmed.
And it ran on to the green and skirted by the cup at the 391-yard hole. Unfortunately, his partner, Mark Hubbard, couldn’t convert the eagle putt but Brehm cleaned up for the birdie to move a stroke closer to the lead.
Former Spartan Ryan Brehm has made the cut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic
Many in the Detroit area are aware and actively paying attention to the Rocket Mortgage Classic, a PGA Tour event being hosted at the Detroit Country Club in Detroit, Michigan. As the tournament goes on, Spartan fans should be paying attention to Ryan Brehm, an MSU alum who is on the PGA Tour.
Brehm shot a -2 (70) on Thursday and followed it up with a -3 (69) on Friday, allowing him to make the cut at the event.
— Celebrating Festive Events (@FestiveHolidays) June 30, 2023
Brehm is a one time winner on the PGA Tour, winning the 2022 Puerto Rico Open.
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Ryan Brehm was cruising when he stepped to the 17th tee at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course on Thursday.
He was 3 under thru 16 holes at the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida, when he sent his tee shot on the par-3, 196-yard hole.
The shot floated through the air before landing short of the pin. Brehm was asking it to carry, and it did. It took one big hop before settling and rolling out and into the cup.
Brehm quickly turned around and jumped up and down while handing out high-fives to his fellow competitors and caddies in his group.
Brehm won the Puerto Rico Open last year, and outside of a T-14 at the Honda Classic three weeks ago, he has missed the cut seven of his eight past starts.
However, Brehm sits on top after the morning wave during the first round, shooting 5-under 66. He’s tied with Stephan Jaegar. Jordan Spieth and Lucas Glover each shot 4-under 67.
Michigan State alumnus Ryan Brehm is a PGA Tour champion!
Ryan Brehm is a PGA Tour champion, the Michigan State alumnus has won the Puerto Rico Open. The Puerto Rico Open was the PGA Tour’s alternative event this week. The tournament taking place at the Grand Reserve Country Club (Old) located in CanĂłvanas, Puerto Rico.
In his last start on a Minor Medical Extension, Ryan Brehm needed a win to retain full PGA TOUR status.
Brehm is a native of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and attended and played golf at Michigan State where he led the Spartans to three Big Ten Championships. After turning professional in 2008, Brehm has competed on various tours including the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour (formerly known as the Web.com Tour). Brehm was a two-time winner on the Korn Ferry Tour.
This is Brehm’s first win on the PGA Tour and will provide him with a lot of exemptions to play on the tour over the next two seasons.
While others struggled with the wind, Brehm calmly maneuvered the course, all with his wife Chelsey on his bag.
The winds were howling. The palm trees were swaying. The galleries were growing.
But Ryan Brehm seemed unfazed by it all.
Needing a top-two finish to maintain his PGA Tour status, the former Michigan State star navigated a figurative minefield at Grand Reserve Golf Club with ease on Sunday, all despite tremendous stakes. While others struggled with the wind, Brehm calmly maneuvered the course, all with his wife Chelsey on his bag.
Ranked 773rd in the world coming into the week, Brehm closed things out in style, firing a bogey-free final round 67 to finish the tournament at 20 under, capturing the Puerto Rico Open by a comfortable margin for his first PGA Tour victory.
Brehm was playing in the last event of his minor medical exemption, meaning he would have been forced to return to the Korn Ferry Tour with a finish of third or lower. This was his 68th start on Tour.
But on Sunday, knowing he’d nearly completed the incredible feat, Brehm and his wife talked about taking things one shot at a time, and he looked surprisingly cool and collected amid the chaotic conditions.
Max McGreevy (14 under), favorite Brandon Wu (13 under) and Tommy Gainey (also 13 under) were the closest to Brehm, but none really mounted a charge to challenge the 35-year-old.
Brehm turned pro in 2008 after helping lead Michigan State to three Big Ten titles, and he later served as an assistant and even interim head coach for the Spartans.
With just 18 holes to play, Brehm has put himself in position to maintain Tour status.
For Ryan Brehm, a trip to balmy Puerto Rico this week has been anything but a relaxing vacation.
Playing on the final week of a medical exemption at the Puerto Rico Open, Brehm needs to finish either first or solo second to retain his PGA Tour status the rest of this season. A victory also would include a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour. Anything outside the top two Sunday means he’s headed back to the Korn Ferry Tour, where he’s a two-time winner.
With just 18 holes to play, however, Brehm has put himself in position to maintain Tour status, finishing with birdies on two of the final three holes and moving into a three-stroke lead after three rounds at Grand Reserve Golf Club.
Playing with his wife, Chelsey, on his bag this week, the former Michigan State star fired a 68 on Saturday and sits at 15 under, three shots up on Michael Kim and four strokes ahead of a pack of four players.
After Brehm has acknowledged all week the pressure that’s accompanied this event, he’s thrilled with the position he’s in through three rounds.
“Obviously, if you would have given me that at the start of the week I’d have taken it,” Brehm said. “There’s just so much golf left. I mean, honestly, all Chelsey and I are trying to do is make one good swing after another and march along. That’s really all we’re trying to do.”
Ryan Brehm is playing on the final start of his Minor Medical Extension, needing a solo second to stay on TOUR for the remainder of the season.
A win would earn full status for the rest of this season, and the next two seasons.
Brehm’s last victory came on the Korn Ferry Tour at the 2019 LECOM Health Challenge at Peek’n Peak Resort in Findley Lake, New York, just outside Buffalo. He defeated Tim Wilkinson in a playoff that day.
“You know, I’m just not the same person I was then. I’ve done a lot of growing, and tomorrow I’ll draw on some experiences on the golf course, for sure,” he said. “It’s going to feel different, all the inner feelings are going to be different and I’m just going to have to take them as they come.”
Brehm finds himself just two more days away from his first win on Tour.
What do you get when you mix 36 holes of bogey-free golf with a 3-3-3 second-round finish? The 36-hole lead at a PGA Tour event.
Midway through the 2022 Puerto Rico Open â an opposite-field event to the elevated Arnold Palmer Invitational â Ryan Brehm finds himself just two more days away from his first win on Tour and first victory since the 2019 LECOM Health Challenge on the Korn Ferry Tour. The 35-year-old fired a 5-under 67 on Friday, aided by a birdie-eagle finish at Grand Reserve Golf Club.
“It was kind of boring until the end,” said Brehm of his round. “I feel like I had to scramble quite a bit, had some difficult up-and-downs, got them up and down, made a few good putts for par, kept the momentum going and finished with a birdie-eagle, made a bomb on the last hole. You add it up, it’s pretty good.”
Michael Kim, Satoshi Kodaira and Max McGreevy are in hot pursuit, just one shot back at 10 under. Callum Tarren rounds out the top five at 9 under.
“As much as you want to take a giant leap at the start, I’m definitely one to take a lot of steppingstones, for sure,” said McGreevy, who fired his career-low on Tour on Friday with an 8-under 64. “This is just one of those in that direction that’s just going to gain more confidence for myself and for my game and I’m excited for the next steppingstone. Hopefully another low round tomorrow and keep building on those steppingstones and hopefully keep giving myself chances.”
Kramer Hickok and Henrik Norlander tested positive for COVID-19 and have withdrawn from the RSM Classic.
Entering this week at Sea Island, just 16 players had tested positive for COVID-19 since the PGA Tour resumed play back in June after a 13-week hiatus due to the pandemic.
Three names have been added to that list in just the last two days.
As part of the Tour’s pre-tournament screening process ahead of this week’s RSM Classic, Kramer Hickok and Henrik Norlander tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday and have withdrawn from the event. Bill Haas tested positive on Tuesday and withdrew.
âObviously, I am very disappointed that I will not be able to play this week, as I am playing well and love the courses at Sea Island,â said Hickok. âNonetheless, I look forward to returning to The RSM Classic next year.â
âAfter noticing some symptoms last night, I was tested this morning for COVID-19 and unfortunately received the positive result,â said Norlander. âWhile Iâm disappointed to withdraw from a tournament where Iâve had success at in the past, Iâm grateful I can drive home to Augusta and have next week to get healthy and be ready to compete again.â
Rhein Gibson replaces Hickok and Ryan Brehm replaces Norlander.
Ryan Brehm’s wife, Chelsey, is the glue that holds their partnership together but she’ll be absent from this week’s PGA Tour event.
Chelsey Brehm has been everywhere with her husband.
They met in 2007 at Michigan State University, married in 2015 and continued traveling the world together. Theyâre only home 14 weeks of the year.
Her husband is Ryan Brehm, a golfer on the PGA Tour.
âIâve been traveling pretty much full time with Ryan,â Chelsey said, âfor the last five or six years.â
The Rocket Mortgage Classic, which began Thursday at Detroit Golf Club, wonât allow spectators â even spouses â to attend in-person, similar to the last three Korn Ferry Tour events he played since golfâs reboot. And thereâs nobody more devastated than Chelsey, the glue that holds them together.
âSheâs never going to get enough credit for what she does,â Ryan, a Mount Pleasant native, said. âShe takes care of everything we do other than golf.â
Chelsey handles unexpected problems that arise, takes care of tickets for friends and family, packs the snacks, caddies and makes sure flights are taken care of weeks ahead of time. Not that Ryan is incapable, but sheâs found a habit for giving him less to worry about.
The couple was in Florida preparing for a tournament when the Tour halted March 13 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chelsey, 33, and Ryan, 34, flew back home to Traverse City, where all the inconsistencies in their life became consistent.
They had everything planned out for the next several months. Self-described as the planner of the family, she tracked down all the reservations, took a guess on how long the coronavirus postponements would last and made cancellations.
And there they were, stuck together in Traverse City.
Chelsey began cooking dinners; Ryan took care of the dishes. They cooked and grilled more meals than they had in the last four months. They extended their deck, built a garden and painted a couple of rooms. The house needed some love, she explained. They even split wood together.
They committed to this attitude: embrace the unknown, take some time off, train your body, train your brain and respect the Tour is doing everything it can to return in a safe way.
âWe were thankful for that time,â Ryan said. âI shouldnât say it was difficult. It was an adjustment, and I understand that a lot of people are going through some hard times, but we finally got a break. And we took full advantage of that.â
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Theyâre members of the LochenHeath Golf Club, but when they shut their doors, Ryan, who was only taking some iron shots in the yard, didnât have anywhere to play until the course reopened in mid-May.
He returned to professional golf three weeks ago for the first Korn Ferry event in months.
Ryan went to two tournaments in Florida before playing last week in Utah, but Chelsea stayed home in Traverse City. She followed a live stream whenever possible and continuously checked leaderboards.
âYouâre like, refresh, refresh, refresh, what did he do on 9?â she said.
Sheâs doing more of that this week as Ryan is competing in his first Tour event in his home state since the 2005 Buick Open as an amateur. He got his Tour card after last season and has played in 13 events in 2020, making the cut eight times. His best finish: tying for 35th at the Puerto Rico Open.
Ryan Brehm golfs while his caddie and wife, Chelsey, walks with him in the 2018 season. (Photo: Chelsey Brehm)
Sitting at No. 199 in the FedExCup standings, Ryan has conditional Tour status, meaning he can only enter tournaments if players in front of him decide not to play. He was able to get into the Rocket Mortgage Classicâs field.
The goal is to make the field for next weekâs Workday Charity Open in Dublin, Ohio.
âHeâll be able to drive down from Detroit if weâre in, who knows right now, and then heâll come home for the (next) week,â Chelsey said, discussing COVID-19 protocols. âThere is a ton of thought that goes into the logistics of it all. We canât just jump on a place and have two connections and be there. You want to fly direct.â
For the Rocket Mortgage Classic, they found a place to stay just outside downtown and have family members in the area. But when Ryan played 18 holes Tuesday and nine Wednesday to practice, Chelsey was nowhere to be seen.
And she wonât be around when he tees off at 1:45 p.m. Thursday for his first round.
Chelsey literally is on the outside looking in this week.But once sheâs able to return, all she does for Ryanâs golf game is going to feel that much sweeter.
âTo not have her and, obviously, the rest of my family,” Ryan said. “They all want to be here, and I know that. I get a lot of support. Itâd be nice if they would be able to come out.â
Evan Petzold is a sports reporting intern at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at epetzold@gannett.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.Â
