Joe Highsmith one-hop aces straight into contention at Rocket Mortgage Classic
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Joe Highsmith came into the Rocket Mortgage Classic having missed the cut in his five previous PGA TOUR events. But now he’s hoping an electric moment from Friday will be the spark he needs for the balance of his 2024 campaign.
A day after Nate Lashley aced the 217-yard par-3 11th hole on Thursday, Highsmith aced the par-3 fifth (his 14th hole of the day) en route to an 8-under 64 – tied for the round of the day through the morning wave at Detroit Golf Club.
It was his second hole-in-one of the season.
Highsmith originally thought the ball was short, yelling at it to “go so much!” It landed on the green, took one hop, and the second hop landed at the bottom of the cup.
“The pin was tucked (in the) front so it was pretty hard to get close," Highsmith said. "When I hit it, I thought it was short for sure. It was just barely mishit. I was totally expecting to be in that front-rough bank and sure enough it just carried on and then it was right at it and flew in the hole second bounce, so that was quite a treat. Did not think it was going in by any means. But that was a steal, for sure.”
Joe Highsmith's awesome one-hop hole-in-one at Rocket Mortgage
Highsmith, who has one top-10 finish so far this season, opened with three birdies in his first six holes and shot a 3-under 33 in his opening nine. He added another circle on his scorecard before acing No. 5. He added birdies on Nos. 6 and 7 to come in with a 5-under 31 on his second nine.
The alum of Pepperdine University said he has recently been trying to get back to some of his “old ways” of playing that had worked well in the past.
“I had a few shots (on Thursday) that felt pretty good even though most of the day wasn’t great – but those are really encouraging just to see that kind of work a couple of times," Highsmith said. "And today I came out feeling really good and felt like I was going to have a pretty good day and I stuck to it pretty well for most of the day. It was great to shoot a score like that.”
Highsmith’s first hole-in-one of the season came at The American Express on No. 13 at the Pete Dye Stadium Course.
He finished at 9-under through 36 holes and is four shots back of Akshay Bhatia as the afternoon wave teed off.