JY Journalism - 2025 Rocket Classic recap and what's next for the tournament

Jake Yono

6/30/25

JY Journalism

2025 Rocket Classic Recap and what's next for the tournament

The 2025 Rocket Classic brought me a lot of enthusiasm as in my 4 year history of being a standard bearer, This year was the first where I volunterred all 4 rounds of the tournament and I realized what i've been missing out on about the game of golf as on my golf page the 2024 touranment recap was the last article on that page and I would like to change that with more articles on a regular basic not just one tournament of the year.

As always the tournament started in birdie-like fashion with the course record of -9 being broken 2 times when 4 year PGA veteran Kevin Roy shot a -10 62 round and South African winless 20 year rookie on the tour Aldrich Potgieter shot the same score tireing them for first and breaking the course record. behind them tied for -9 was Max Greyserman, the 2nd year Tour Player emereging onto the scene and A man I never heard of before the tournament but currently has a playoff spot at 48th in FedEx cup points and 101/151 on cuts made and notable top 10 finishes. Tied with him was also 2nd year tour player and fan favorite Min Woo Lee who got onto the tour be winning the SJM Macao Open and Fortinet Australian PGA Championship internationally in 2023 and has made 44/64 cuts on the tour and only missed 3 cuts this season and won the Texas Children's Open and is currently ranked 39th in FedEx cup points and I was walked with his group as a Standard Bearer in round 3 coming up later. Also tied with them is 11 year PGA Tour veteran Mark Hubbard who has stayed in the top 125 consistently throughout this period but has not achieved victory on tour but earned a lot of money from made cuts. Also I would like to shout out a player that can potentially make a future impact African American Detroit Golf Member Joe Hooks who has multiple APGA wins and who win the John Shippen to get exemption into the tournament. With vary few African Americans to make PGA Tour Starts in the leagues existence, only about 15 players (less then 1%). The only African-American player in the field had the community watching him, as Hooks started off really well on pace to make the cut at -2 through 9 but on his 2nd nine he made 2 more birdies but double bogeyed and had 2 bogeys putting him at even for the first round, Many thought hooks can adjust going into round 2 and he started too much into the future as golfers who don't make the cut have a lot of regrouping to do. With this in round 2 through 11 holes Hooks was -2 with a double bogey on 6 putting him in great contention to make the cut at -6 in his last 7 holes until he started shortdiding and high-flying greens and not being able to make it out of bunkers making him +6 for his last 7 holes leaving him at +4 for the tournament and missing the cut. I truly believe Joe has it in him but constant double bogeys aren't going to get him to prosperity, otherwise i'm excited to see what he can do as I watched him on the course and can see he has potential. My round 1 group was the 8:13 starting time of Danish Oympian Rasmus Høggard who shot -3, German PGA Tour rookie Jeremy Paul who shot -2, and Clemson Native Ben Martin who has been on tour since 2009 and has 1 win and earned over $11 million playing on Tour and shot -3 giving himself a shot at making the cut and his caddy Luke Hopkins hadf a conversation with me because I was in a boot the entire time just to ask me how I got the injury and seeing if I was ok and he talked to me about how he became A professional caddy and how I could do it because in the future I might want to as a side hustle.

Round 2 of the tournament was filled with much excitement as Philip Knowles jumped up the leaderboard form a -6 round 1 to a -8 round 2 to move T1 and after this he had a disappointing finish to the tournament as he finished at T34. With him was Andrew Potham jumping up from 8th but in his weekend rounds he moved back down to 8th where he would finish the tournament. The 3rd man tied for the lead going into the weekend was 40 year old veteran Chris Kirk with 6 career wins spread across his career and he shot -7 on both days, he would later go on to maintain this position and make a 3 man playoff. Jackson Suber the 25 year old rookie out of Ole Miss was in second 1 shot back jumping up from a round 1 66 and shot a 65 on friday. Aldrich had his worst round of the tournament shooting a 70 putting him at -12 along with Mark Hubbard. My group on friday was the 7:18 tee time of #52 OWGR the German Stephan Jaeger who was -2 coming into the day, Tom Kim who currently 90th fighting for a playoff spot in the FedEx cup and has $15 Million in prize money on the tour with 3 wins and he was -5 coming into the day and Jake Knapp who is in playoff position as he's #54 in FedEx cup standings and winner of the 2024 Mexico Open who was even coming in. Jaeger couldn't control his driver which haunted him and shot even to miss the cut in a vary frustrating fashion. Tom Kim also struggled as well hitting penalties on drives and misreading par 3s which led him to 3 double bogeys in the finish finishing at +4 for fridays outing and -1 for the tournament missing the cut. Jake Knapp had an unforgettable day as he shot a 61 which is -11 breaking the course record set by two men the day before and he had a slow start to the round also as he was even through 3 but the last 15 holes he went -11 to move up 125 spots to jump up to being tied for 4th in the tournament. To be honest I was more focused on putting the score on the sign ASAP rather than actually know whats going on on the course and I zoned out until about his 15th hole when camaras started approaching my group and when he birdied #8 (his 17th of the day) he had done it and no one from rounds 3 or 4 got close to Jake Knapp's course record.

86 players made the six under cutline at the Rocket Classic which meant a lot more players then usual will be contending in the 3rd and 4th rounds 3 and 4. Aldrich Potgieter shot a 65 which was the best score of the day and -19 for the tournament 2 shots ahead of the rest of the field at -17 consisting of Max Greyserman, Jake Knapp, Andrew Putnam, Chris Kirk and Mark Hubbard who all had recent rounds on the day but nothing big to jump up into a lone second in first. This meant going into the final round of the 2025 Rocket Classic, the 20 year PGA big hitter PGA tour rookie Aldrich Potgieter with a 2 shot lead going into the final day. My loop for the day was the 2 man 10:15 tee time of one of the nicest people on Tour Peter Malnati and the Australian of South Korean descent 2nd your star and fan favorite on the PGA Tour Min Woo Lee who were both -7 for the tournament coming into the day and were firing on all cylinders and showing that should of made the cut with Peter shooting -5 and Min Woo at -4 placing Peter in the top 30 and Min Woo in the top 20. This was my favorite group overall of the week even though I watched Jake Knapp break the course record the day before, these guys had no issue with penalties only 3 combined bogeys all together and Min Woo Closed with 4 straight bridies as he was even before that in round 3. I also would like to highlight how nice these guys are and it goes a long way in sports, whenever Min Woo wanted to change his ball his caddie gave me and the walking scorer his ball with his logo on it and he asked me questions about my ankle and called me a "trooper". Malnadi truly has a heart of gold, he was asking me questions and remembered peoples names who worked at the tournament and things mentioned in their conversations 1 whole tournament later, and at the end of the round he gave me a personalized message on a signed ball.

The final round of the tournament played out as expected as Potgieter shot a 69 and still hung on dispute all the pressure putting him at -22 under, Chris Kirk had a huge day shooting -5 to get back from his 2 shot deficit, and Max Greyserman who was at -17 shot the same score to enter into the 3 man playoff and Jake Knapp missed a birdie putt on 18 to join the 3 men in the playoff and at that moment after my shift I left the tournament. I didn't want to watch 3 guys I didn't care for in a playoff that lasted 90 minutes and although is was compelling golf to watch I wasn't interested in it but Aldrich is going to be an amazing player as he's a power hitter and can putt under pressure, I knew none of these players in the 3-man playoff but congrats to the South African Aldrich Potgieter who's only 20 years old. My group for sunday was the worst of the tournament but I still learned a lot from these gentlemen who we're out of the picture in the lefty and 2025 winner of the Cognizant Classic and currently ranked 42nd in FedEx cup standings and coming in had been -10 and shot a 69 while accidently dropping his wedge in front of the green on the 17th hole hitting his ball costing him a stroke, he earned FedEx cup points furthering his case to be crowned Tour Champion, the other player in my group at -10 was Luke List who has won twice on the tour since 2013 and won twice in his career and is out of the playoff picture and couldn't hit on birdie putts and shot a 70 to finish in the top 40.

The current situation of the Rocket Classic is in jeopardy as the contract expires after 2026 and members at the club are not fascinated with this tournament as it's shown that it is really hard to get a PGA Tour started as in the 7th running of the tournament it's seen some traction but it's like so many other PGA events where theres low scores and not the best competition, the best players in the tournaments history by OWGR have been current #5 Collin Morikawa, who played in previous years but not currently. #11 Hideki Matsuyama, #7 Keegan Bradley, and Patrick Cantlay #20 have played in the recent years despite the recent current dilemma, Tony Finau stopped coming to the tournament a previous winner who's #42 in the world as long as world #4 Justin Thomas, and #15 Bryson Dechambeau because he forgoed his eligibility and PGA Tour card as the field rating and points total on the OWGR's website listed it as 17th out of the 26 events played this year on Tour and noting that it's not in a prime location like tournaments ranked behind at such as the Puerto Rico Open, the Sony Open in Hawaii, the Mexico Open and Puerto Rico open, many critics and angry people on social media do not like this addition to the tour and want it out but I think it's fine for the tour to keep it up and the diversity that it brings with the John Shippin for African American players to enter the field like Joe Hooks this year. Just like last year, I will be sharing photos with captions of my experiences of this years event as I had a great time, thank you.