In 2012, Andrew Ruthkoski set the record at Oak Ridge Golf Club in Muskegon, scoring 11-under 61.
Sunday evening, while playing the unofficial Twilight round in his home court with his two twin daughters, he matched 11 under–through nine holes. By the time he finished, Rothkowski had shot the most unimaginable point: 17 under 55.
seriously. There were four witnesses.
Yes, it was a good time,” Rothkowski said with a laugh over the phone this week.
Ruthkoski, 39, a professional golfer from Muskegon, shooting a 55 between a strong showing at the Michigan Open and the preliminaries this week for the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic, took The News through the tour, hole after hole, which featured four Eagles (up front the front nine alone) and nine birds in a track were playing at just over 6,000 yards from the rear tees.
► Hole 1, 488 yards, 5 ft (Make 3): Rothkowski hit his second shot just a short distance from the green and slammed it in.
Hole 2, 117 yards, paragraph 3 (2): Rothkowski nearly overtook her, and stood a foot to the right of the hole.
► Hole 3, 369 yards, Para 4 (3): He hit his close to the sidelines and made 15 feet. “How is that at first,” Rothkowski said to his group, after opening 4 under through three holes. If only he knew what was to come.
► Hole 4, 526 yards, 5 ft (3): Rothkowski hit a five-iron from 211 yards as he approached, right in the sun. He knew it was good, but he couldn’t tell, until he got to the green and the ball was 5 feet from the cup.
► Hole 5, 345 yards, par 4 (2): He said the hole was playing over 330 yards, and on an 80-degree night without wind, he slapped his engine short. Bounce up to 7 feet, and you know the rest.
Hole 6, 326 yards, 4 (3) feet: On a competitive round, he hit a 5-wood from a tee in the narrow driving hole, but crashed into the driver on Sunday. Fell slightly to the left of the green, cut into 5 feet and made a jumper.
At this point, it was closing at 8:45pm, which is the time the club asks for gigs to be returned (standard practice, so staff don’t sit all night waiting for an extreme couple).
So Rothkowski’s daughters, Emma and Ryan Juma, 19, and Emma’s boyfriend, Max Price, agree to call her for the night and return the gigs. But Rothkowski’s friend, Dave Buck, who has a home in Oak Ridge in addition to his golf cart, didn’t want to leave Rothkowski on what was shaping up to be a historic tour. So he offered to lead him the rest of the way.
“Man, you can’t stop playing,” Bryce told Rothkowski.
And so he did not.
► Hole 7, 326 yards, bar 4 (4), and hole 8, 190 yards, Paragraph 3 (3): He cut both holes. slacker.
► Hole 9, 304 yards, par 4 (2): Rothkowski drove another drive of the Par-4 green, to about 20 feet, and made the cornering knockout at 11 below par. Fire 25. That’s a good hit result. The Epic Scramble Nine. However, Ruthkoski was a one-man show.
Ruthkoski opened the back nine with a jumper at 325 yards, a 4-hole 10, then cut the next two holes, 370 and 300 yards, before hitting 531 yards, 5-bar, 13.
It was at that hole, Rothkowski said, that he first started feeling nervous, knowing that the next jumper would put him in a 60-break position—the Holy Grail of golf.
His tee shot was a little off the line on the 13th, and he had some limb and tree issues, forcing him to punch a 4-iron. He pulled it off, introducing him to 30 yards from the green and breaking near 13 under.
“I was a little nervous there,” Rothkowski said.
Rothkowski still had to avoid the ghost to get home under the age of 60, and that wasn’t a concern for long. At 128 yards, 3 14 feet, he stuffed 9 irons to 4 feet for a bird, then made another birdie at 324 yards, par-4 15, nearly 30 yards for another eagle.
After cutting the 209-yard hole, the third, and the thirteenth, he hit the mast as he approached 327 yards, a 4-17, making him 4 feet for a birdie.
Then came the 18th, 504 yards, 5. Leaving the tee dead, out of bounds, while driving range is correct, but not out of bounds. So, not wanting to derail an epic round of golf, Rothkowski targeted the range and drove it there. He was still taking a good look at the pin, and hit 5 irons out of 210, to about 15 holes.
He didn’t want to be aggressive with the knockout and let himself have a tough slope back, so he put him back a short foot and took advantage of it.
against 55.
Consider this: a “perfect” golf game is a 54 on par 72. As with the perfect NCAA championship bracket, as far as we know, it hasn’t been done, at any level. On the PGA Tour, the record is 58 for Jim Furyk.
“No, it’s like the result of a stampede,” Rothkowski said. “With five guys, we can shoot under 18. We play here in a scramble for Muskegon, and it’s backing Mona Shores High School, and that’s the biggest event of that course. And the guys text me, ‘You guys are going to be a one-man team.'” Scramble this year! “
Rothkowski, with Buck as his escort, played the linebacker nine in about an hour, finishing just before 10 p.m. — taking advantage of the time of year (June 19, third-largest sunlight of the year) and playing on Michigan’s Sunset Coast, where locals know they They get an extra 20 or 30 minutes of daylight from us interior residents.
Ruthkoski posted the scorecard to Facebook, as well as multiple videos, in case you’d like to see the record.
“Silent,” one friend, Josh Vocal, wrote, “Perfectly silent!”
Another, Bobby DeForcene, wrote: “That’s a dirty number.”
Speaking to The News, Ruthkoski was very comfortable about the entire experience. He admitted that the course, which he played so often that he might have played in the dark anyway, was short. so what.
Over the years, he’s stalked every hole there at some point, and maybe vultures half of them.
“So why not in one round?” He said while laughing.
Now, it’s back to the hustle of the golf business for Rothkowski, who was flying in on Wednesday for Thursday’s preliminaries for the John Deere Classic, in East Moline, Illinois. Next month, he will take his place in the 3M Open qualifiers in Minnesota and the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. Still taking his shots on the Korn Ferry Tour, too, he just lost a spot recently, dropping in a playoff.
Earlier this month, he finished 21st at the Michigan Open in Northern Michigan.
Rothkowski, a Michigan State graduate, won the 2007 Michigan Open and won back-to-back Michigan Champion titles in 2013 and 2014.
The resume is long and impressive, but that is the case with many of the state’s top golfers.
However, none of them fired—or would ever shoot—55.
In sandals, no less.
We are running a new private subscriber. Support the local press and subscribe here
Twitter: @tonypaul1984