This Week's PGA Tour Event Has a Player Who Isn't Old Enough to Go in the Locker Room

Miles Russell, age 15, got an invite to the Rocket Mortgage Classic after making the cut in a Korn Ferry Tour event earlier this year.

Miles Russell is playing this week on the PGA Tour at age 15. / Katie Goodale, Katie Goodale / USA TODAY

Miles Russell is skipping a big amateur event at Pinehurst this week in order to play in Detroit. Of course, it’s for good reason. The 15-year-old golfer will compete in his first PGA Tour event.

Rocket Mortgage offered Russell a spot in this week’s field at Detroit Golf Club, where the Rocket Mortgage Classic begins Thursday. He made the cut earlier this year at a Korn Ferry Tour event in Sarasota, earning a spot in the following week’s event because he finished among the top 25.

Now he’s going to see how he fares at the top level of the PGA Tour.

“I was pretty excited,” Russell said Wednesday during a pre-tournament news conference. “I was speechless pretty much at the time. It's always been a dream to play at the highest level and compete with the best players in the world and I get to do that this week, so really looking forward to it.”

Russell, a lefthanded golfer from Jacksonville Beach, Fla., said he’d be at the North-South Amateur in Pinehurst this week were it not for the PGA Tour invite.

Another player in the field, Willie Mack, joked that Russell isn’t even allowed in the locker room at Detroit Golf Club because a rule stipulates you must be 16 to enter.

“Hopefully he doesn’t beat me, but does well,” said another golfer in the field, Min Woo Lee.

The top-ranked junior in the American Junior Golf Association, Russell broke Tiger Woods’s record as the youngest player to win AJGA player of the year. He was also the youngest to win the Junior PGA Championship. He played in the Junior Ryder Cup and was named to the first USGA Junior National team. He’s also been invited to the PGA Tour's Bermuda Championship this fall.

Michelle Wie is the youngest to compete in a PGA Tour event, having teed it up at the 2004 Sony Open at 14.

Russell thanked his “team”—which is a bit jarring for a kid who can’t yet drive—and then noted that includes his agent (Allen Hobbs), his coach (Ramon Bascansa), his caddie and his family “and then just a couple good buddies that I play with at home, they always keep it real.”

Russell is scheduled to tee off on Thursday at 2:11 p.m. ET along with Pierceson Coody and Rico Hoey.