DETROIT, Mich. – James Nicholas '19, the former captain of the Yale Men's Golf Team who shot a 61 in the June 8 Korn Ferry Tour Monday qualifier, will compete in this week's PGA Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club with a sponsor's exemption.

Nicholas will be the third Ivy League player to make a PGA Tour start since Yale's Peter Teravainen '78 in 1991. Bob Heintz '92 and Dartmouth's Peter Williamson '12 were the others. The Rocket Mortgage Classic runs from July 2 - 5.

The Scarsdale, N.Y., native came to Yale as a three-sport star and ended up playing two seasons of football for the Bulldogs before focusing all of his athletic attention on the links and helping his team win the 2018 Ivy Championship.

Nicholas, who claimed medalist honors at the 2019 Ivy League Championship and was twice the league's player of the year, qualified to play as an individual at the 2019 NCAA Stanford Regional. He earned a spot on the PING All-Region Team for the Northeast also his junior and senior years before setting his sights on Q School.

Williamson played two events in 2013 as an amateur (the Memorial and the Arnold Palmer Invitational) and the 2017 Puerto Rico Open as a professional. Heintz was the last Ivy Leaguer to have a Tour card, making 60 cuts in 155 events between 1999 and 2010. His best result was runner-up at the 2010 Reno-Tahoe Open.

As for other Ivy Leaguers who have played in the various PGA Tours:
-Evan Harmeling '12 (Princeton) earned his Korn Ferry Tour card last year after finishing in year among the top three on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica.
-Harrison Shih '16 (Columbia) became a member of the PGA Tour Latinoamerica in 2019 and has 12 starts.
-Rohan Ramnath '16 (Harvard) had PGA Tour Latinoamerica status in 2017 and 2019.
-Max Marsico '12 (Penn) made 34 Korn Ferry Tour starts in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
-Michael Blodgett '10 (Penn) played some events on the Korn Ferry Tour in the early part of the last decade.
-Chris Condello '08 (Columbia) played in the 2007 U. S. Open at Oakmont.
-Chris Eckerle '02 (Yale) played one Korn Ferry Tour event in 2003.

One of the best-known Bulldog golfers was Jess Sweetser '23, the 1920 national intercollegiate champion and a lifelong amateur who routinely played a pro tournament or two each year because he won the British and U.S. Amateur. He played in the U.S. Open and the Masters, but he was never a pro.


Click HERE for the Rocket Mortgage field.