Resilience personified: Philip Knowles contending at Rocket Classic after 3 eagles Friday

USA Today

18 hours ago

Not one, not two, but three.
That's how many hole-out eagles Philip Knowles had on his scorecard in Friday's second round of the 2025 Rocket Classic.
And these weren't just your run-of-the-mill chip-ins, either.
Knowles holed pitch shots from 40 yards, 37 yards and 27 yards to eagle three of the four par 5s at Detroit Golf Club — Nos. 4, 7 and 17. He also birdied the other one — No. 14 — to finish the day 7 under on the par 5s alone. He's the second player to make three eagles in a round on the PGA Tour this season. Chandler Phillips did it on Thursday at the Players Championship.
"When you're playing bad, you never feel like you're going to play good again, and when you have days like today, you just don't understand how you could ever shoot a bad round of golf," Knowles said in his post-round presser Friday. "So, it was super rewarding. I got pretty lucky a couple times, I hit quality shots that ended up going in the hole, but I can't imagine chipping in three times for eagle ever again in my life."
All of that culminated in an 8-under 64 in the second round for Knowles, who grabbed a share of the lead with Chris Kirk at 14 under early Friday afternoon. The 28-year-old from Florida fired a first-round 66 Thursday.
Philip Knowles has had his share of adversity as a pro golfer
Knowles hasn't made a cut on the PGA Tour since March and he only has one top-30 finish this season in 11 starts, which came at the Puerto Rico Open where he was T-16. But that could be chalked up to his recovery from an injury he suffered shortly after he'd graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022.
"We're here in 2025 and I'm still playing out my rookie year starts playing on a medical [extension]. I got hurt that year early at Pebble, freak accident taking out the recycling, severed a nerve in my thumb so I didn't play much that year."
His bad fortune didn't stop there.
"In 2024 when I started to come back, I was actually on my way to Mexico for my first start on my medical [extension] and I broke out in shingles in my right eye. That persisted. I got on meds and then it came back, and I got off meds and it came back, and that happened four times over the next like six months."
Or there.
"Mixed in there as well I got a really bad case of mono at one point."
Health issue after health issue derailed his PGA Tour career from the jump, but now, after two excellent rounds and a lot of highlight-reel shots at the Rocket Classic, Knowles suddenly finds himself at the top of the leaderboard in an event that features four of the top 20 players in the world.
"We still don't know that we have the answer, and I still don't feel like I'm a hundred percent, but life goes on," Knowles said. "I've got two little girls, I've got a wife who needs me to help. It's not like I can spend my days just woe is me.
"So today was — we laughed about it a little bit, me and my caddie. This felt like at least a little bit of the evening out of that law of averages. Not that I should expect to chip in for eagle multiple times."
He must accrue enough FedEx Cup points in the starts left on his medical extension to keep his exemption status for the rest of the season. In order to keep it for 2026, he needs to finish inside the top 100 in the standings.
Entering this week, he was 195th.
"For me playing on a medical, it's kind of a unique position. I only have a handful of starts left, so kind of feels like every week is a big week and I feel like I've been playing with that burden for a lot of the year.
"Though I haven't been in this position, I feel -- it doesn't feel unfamiliar. And to be here playing on the PGA Tour, you think you've never been in this position before, but we've all been in this position before at some level, be it college, junior golf, early professional golf, we've all been here."
If Knowles — the world No. 519 — comes out victorious in Detroit, it would undoubtedly be one of the most unexpected wins on Tour in 2025. But no matter what happens, he has one thing he's certain he can look forward to: dad time. His wife and two young daughters are in Detroit with him this week.
"[It's] the best," he said. "I mean, it's so much fun when you leave the golf course and it just becomes dad time. I mean, it's immediate. We go into lunch and all of a sudden you're sitting there trying to help a 2-year-old eat her lunch or not lose her mind, you know... But I love it and I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm always grateful to have them around. I would never not want them to be here."