The Rocket Classic Is Michigan's Last Pro Golf Event for a Long While
With the Rocket Classic done after this year, and LIV’s team championship about to be cancelled, there’s no more professional golf in Michigan until 2034
Detroit — The Rocket Classic, the PGA Tour’s only tournament in Michigan, teed off yesterday. Crowds are swarming the Detroit Golf Club, and golfer Peter Malnati leads the leaderboard at 9-under par. Yet that’s not what’s making the news.
This is the last year of the Rocket Classic, since Rocket Mortgage pulled their sponsorship. Rival league LIV Golf seems likely to cancel its Michigan team championship slated for August as well. Just like that, professional golf is dead in Michigan.
It’s not due to lack of fans or enthusiasm for the game. Even for the upstart LIV, raucous crowds attended their team championship last year in droves. Golf is growing in Michigan, as every golfer here knows, with tee sheets always jam packed across the state.
Thursday at the Rocket Classic was very well attended for the first day of an outlier PGA event. Crowds milled around every green, drinks were ordered and drank, hands were politely clapped.
The crowd was a mix of golf diehards, well-dressed women in golf skirts, families with small children, and college kids off for the summer with little else to do. Lots of younger guys in Good Good hats, from the popular YouTube golf channel.
One young family sat greenside with a stroller, the mother feeding her infant a bottle as golfers chipped up to the green. The father’s a real golf sicko, undoubtedly, with irons uniformly worn down right at the sweet spot.
There was no shortage of enthusiasm, despite a fairly lackluster roster of players. Cam Young, the globally ranked No. 3 golfer, is the crowd favorite, and perhaps the most notable name. J.J. Spaun, Jordan Spieth, Russell Henley and a few other American names round out the list.
But no Scottie Scheffler, no Rory McIlroy. The PGA’s two biggest players didn’t bother to show.
The Rocket Classic isn’t a major tournament. It’s not even a particularly notable PGA event. Most folks outside of Southeast Michigan haven’t even heard of it.
It’s a tournament for the grinders, for the tour players who show up to every tournament trying to climb their way up the rankings, or at least secure a little prize money.
Bryson DeChambeau, the LIV Golf and YouTube star, won the tournament early in his career in 2020, on the way to his first U.S. Open Championship win a few months later. Few remember it, but his massive drives at that tournament first got him national attention.
It’s the smaller tournaments like this that give both the players and fans more accessibility to the game. Yet pro golf is moving in another direction, with relentless focus on the major tournaments, to everyone’s detriment.
Historically, Michigan has hosted a PGA Tour event under one name or another for decades. The Buick Open ran from 1958-69, and again from 1977-2009. The Rocket’s been on the PGA schedule since 2019, and a few U.S Open Championships over the years round it out.
Speaking of the U.S. Open—that’s the next pro golf event for Michigan, slated for Oakland Hills in 2034. That’s eight years coming up with no top level pro golf in Michigan.
The reality is, pro golf in Michigan has always been underwritten by individual companies’ marketing budgets. It was Buick for decades, now Rocket Mortgage and the Saudi Public Investment Fund. The tournaments aren’t considered noteworthy enough to attract independent financing, and once the sponsor pulls out, it’s over.
It’s a shame, because Michiganders really do love it. Even for a lesser tournament, with the star players absent, hosted at a very nice golf club in a not-so-nice neighborhood in Detroit, they show up.
No matter that the stately Tudor mansions ringing the course are themselves protected by gated metal fences on the outside, or that the parking lot shuttle bus is needed not just because parking is a mile away, but because it wouldn’t be safe to walk.
Michiganders showed up because they love the sport, and they love seeing pro golfers play it in person. It really is something if you’ve only seen it on TV. Especially if you’ve played the game yourself, seeing these guys pick apart a very challenging course right in front of you is just astounding.
Maybe at some point in the next eight years some big Detroit company will decide to sponsor a reincarnation of the event, but it seems doubtful. Perhaps the only way to ensure a lasting tournament for Michigan would be creating a fifth major, which is even less likely.
Until then, Michiganders, get your fill this weekend at the Rocket Classic. It’s the last pro golf you’ll see for quite some time, unless you’re willing to leave the state.
