Detroit — Everything that could’ve gone right for the Rocket Classic, Detroit’s PGA Tour stop, went right in 2026.
The field was arguably the best in the tournament’s history. And the galleries were the largest in years, two things not at all unrelated, of course. The ideal place on the Michigan summer calendar, well after the 4th of July and still well before back-to-school and Labor Day, helped on that front big-time, too. So did splendid weather (mostly).
Detroit Golf Club showed off a newly renovated course, with some stunning aesthetics, to near-universal rave reviews. And, once again, there was a Sunday shootout, with six players tied for the lead at one point during the final round, before Michael Thorbjornsen stormed the back nine for his first PGA Tour victory.
Even the TV ratings were a smash, CBS’s broadcast of the final round the most-watched in the tournament’s history.
Eight years in for a tournament that was dealt more than its fair share of challenges over the years — COVID, damaging storms, wildfire smoke, LIV Golf’s arrival — and everything finally came together in 2026.
And, now, it’s over.
The eighth Rocket Classic was also the last one, with Rocket Companies deciding in early June to halt its long run as a tournament title sponsor on the PGA Tour amid uncertainty over the tour’s future landscape, among other factors.
“Obviously, you want to be able to come back to a course that you won it,” Thorbjornsen said late in the day Sunday, Aug. 2, after sealing a two-shot victory over Xander Schauffele, and then acknowledging he will get no chance to defend his first PGA Tour title.
“I’m crossing my fingers hoping that we kind of do find an event here at some point.”
Thorbjornsen has a whole lot of company in pushing for a return to Detroit, or Metro Detroit, in the near future — given that so many interested and pivotal parties walked away thrilled with how the 2026 tournament played out, including players, fans, Rocket officials, and, most importantly, the leadership at Detroit Golf Club and the PGA Tour.
“I think it resonates the importance of golf in the state of Michigan, and that’s come out very strong,” said Mark Hollis, in his first (and last) year as tournament director of the Rocket Classic. “When you listen to the players, the appreciation that all of all of us have for the game, I think that’s going to open up some discussion about what the future holds.”
Hollis continued: “I believe the Tour will have discussions about Detroit.”
The PGA Tour remains on the record it is still very interested in playing a tournament in the area, and it has been in talks, if not formal negotiations, with potential new sponsors and considering possible new venues. But time also is of the essence. If a deal for a return is going to happen — very unlikely in 2027, more realistic in 2028 and beyond — it needs to come together soon, with slots filling up past for the top series of the PGA Tour’s new two-tier schedule, which is set to debut in 2028. That 2028 schedule is expected to be finalized early next year.
Will the PGA Tour return to Detroit?
Two big things need to happen for the PGA Tour to return to Detroit or Metro Detroit. It needs a sponsor and a venue. There are conversations happening on both fronts, according to an industry source. How serious or advanced those talks are, however, isn’t known. What is known is this: The clock is ticking.
The PGA Tour, under new CEO (and incoming commissioner) Brian Rolapp, is moving to a two-tier schedule starting in 2028, with a top-level Championship Series and a second set of events called the Challenger Series.
The Championship Series will feature between 23 and 24 tournaments, including the four majors, The Players and the PGA Tour playoffs, played from January through August. That’s where the best golfers in the world will play. Title sponsorship for those tournaments is running at more than $30 million.
The Challenger Series will be at least 20 events, and feature the next tier of golfers, with a promotion system in place. There will be no crossover play on the tours, though.
Top players will play the Championship Series, and the next group will play the Challenger Series, where sponsorship is at least $15 million, about what Rocket has been paying the last several years of its 13-year run as a title sponsor (before the Rocket, Quicken Loans sponsored a tournament outside of Washington, D.C., for five years).
As expected, despite the two-X-multiple price tag, interest in the Championship Series is more rampant than the Challenger Series among potential sponsors.
On Tuesday morning, the PGA Tour announced that its longtime stop in Greensboro, N.C., would be a part of the Championship Series starting in 2028. Like Rocket, that tournament’s longtime sponsor, Wyndham, is leaving the PGA Tour, with Raymond James and the Piedmont Trust Charitable Foundation announced Tuesday the new sponsor.
That marks the sixth tournament to officially join the Championship Series, along with the Travelers Championship, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the Cadillac Championship, The Sentry, and a new tournament in California, sponsored by Sompo, which was announced early in Rocket week to take the Rocket’s place on the schedule starting in 2027, before joining the Championship Series in 2028. The Sompo is expected to change weeks on the calendar in 2028, especially if Detroit comes back into the fold, given how well the July 30-Aug. 2 placement worked in Detroit in 2026.
Other tournaments that have been so-called signature events on the PGA Tour are expected to be a part of the Championship Series, too, including the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Genesis Invitational, RBC Heritage, Truist Championship, the Memorial Tournament, WM Phoenix Open and The CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Including the four majors, The Players Championship and the BMW Championship, which is locked into a playoff spot (at rotating venues) into the next decade, that leaves only a handful of spots, at most, still up for grabs on the Championship Series.
All of the officially announced Championship Series tournaments are multi-year deals, though the PGA Tour is believed to be preparing to shy away from super-long-term deals down the road. Rolapp anticipates title sponsorships could demand upward of $40 million or more someday soon, and doesn’t want to be locked in deals in the low $30-millions.
For what it’s worth, Rocket hasn’t completely closed the book on becoming a title sponsor again, depending how the new two-tiered system plays out. Nic Barlage, CEO of Rocket Entertainment Group, has previously described Rocket’s decision to end its title sponsorship as a “pause.”
Asked if Rocket could get back in the max, Hollis said, “I’m uncertain about that. I know we appreciate the game, and I know they love Detroit. It’s just a matter of, how do those conversations go broadly.”
Barlage has previously said Rocket wouldn’t be interested in being part of the Challenger Series, saying the second-tier moniker doesn’t mesh with the company’s brand. Judging by rollout announcements for the 2028 schedule, the Challenger Series has been a slower sell for the PGA Tour. Some critics have compared it to a second Korn Ferry Tour.
The PGA Tour remains interested in Detroit for many reasons — the PGA Tour lacks Midwest footprints, and tournaments in predominantly Black cities, and it enjoys telling the narrative of Detroit to the nation — and for either series, depending on sponsor interest. Rolapp has cited a desire to be in top media markets for the Championship Series, and Detroit still remains among the nation’s top 15 media markets.
According to an industry source, the PGA Tour has fielded calls about potential title sponsors before and since Rocket officially pulled out several weeks ago. The identity of those potential title sponsors isn’t known, though there’s been speculation for more than a year about potential or at least perceived interest from Pontiac-based United Wholesale Mortgage, owned by Mat Ishbia, a business rival of Rocket’s Dan Gilbert (in the mortgage and NBA worlds). A spokesperson for Ishbia and UWM hasn’t commented. UWM’s stock recently tumbled amid big second-quarter losses.
Natural speculation also has led to the local auto industry, which has a rich history in golf, and lately has started to circle back, with Ford sponsoring the LPGA, and General Motors (a longtime sponsor of the Buick Open in Grand Blanc) reemerging with this year’s Cadillac Championship. The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation, which owns and runs Saint John’s Resort and The Cardinal in Plymouth Township, is known to be interested in big-time golf tournaments.
The Cardinal hosted LIV Golf’s team championship in 2025 and is still scheduled to again later this month, though that tournament appears all but officially scrapped amid LIV Golf’s funding crisis. Saint John’s officials aren’t commenting publicly on future plans until LIV Golf makes an official announcement on the status of this year’s team championship.
Will the PGA Tour return to Detroit Golf Club?
Finding a title sponsor (new or, if Rocket circles back, old) is the first step toward the PGA Tour returning to Detroit or the Metro area. Then, there’s the matter of finding a venue.
Michigan has no shortage of golf courses, but finding golf courses suitable to host a PGA Tour tournament is a whole other story. You need championship course conditions, you need enough yardage (ideally, 7,400 or more), you need enough space on the grounds for infrastructure buildout and galleries of 10,000 or more a day, you need ample nearby parking, and you need membership interest and cooperation. You have to have all of those things, or you have nothing. That drastically limits the supply of possible venues in the area.
Those heavily invested in Michigan’s golf scene put the supply of courses that meet all the criteria in Detroit or the Metro area at a handful of courses or so, including Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, which is the PGA Tour’s dream. Rolapp has said he wants the best tournaments staged at the cathedrals of golf, but Oakland Hills is only interested in hosting major championships. (It’s unclear if being in a rotation of venues for a PGA Tour event is prestigious enough for the club to consider.)
That supply of courses that meet most if not all of the criteria, of course, includes Detroit Golf Club, which benefitted greatly from the Rocket during the tournament’s eight-year run. It was paid at least $2 million a year to host, and its membership swelled amid the visibility the tournament brought to the club.
Over the years, though, the membership fractured on the value of hosting the Rocket. Many liked it, helping pass the proposal for a $16.1-million renovation, which debuted for the 2026 Rocket Classic. But many soured on the Rocket, not appreciating the interruption it caused all throughout the year. Buildout for the Rocket began two months before the tournament, and structures didn’t come down until about a month after the tournament. That’s a lot to ask for members to deal with, during an already short golf season.
While Rocket had long and heated internal debates about the value of the tournament to the city, Detroit Golf Club also was a factor. For any long-term extension, a vote of the membership would be needed. And it wasn’t a certainty to pass. Gilbert long insisted, in bringing the PGA Tour back to Michigan for the first time since the Buick Open last was played in 2009, it was going to be in the city of Detroit. That left DGC as the only option.
Well, an interesting thing happened amid all the positivity of Rocket week in 2026. There started to be rumblings about DGC still being an option. The club’s president confirmed that in an interview with The News.
“Well, I definitely think that this year has changed that narrative,” said Keith Hazely, whose club has 759 members, 443 of which are considered Class A (or full status). “I think it’s definitely changed the mind set of quite a few members. … There was a lot of animus in the past.
“Our members have a tremendous amount of pride in our history, relative to hosting competitive golf events. I think there definitely could be an opportunity for the members to definitely say yes to that in the future.”
But, for now, the PGA Tour’s time in Detroit has passed.
At least it went out with a bang in 2026, when nothing went wrong — besides, well, it being over.
“Summer won’t feel the same without the event to look forward to,” said Colin Fitzgerald, 38, of Royal Oak, who attended the tournament four of the eight years (no fans were allowed in 2020), multiple days all of those four years.
“It’s a damn shame.”
PGA Tour’s history in Michigan
Note: List doesn’t include major championships Western Open: Eight times between 1904-61 (last at Blythefield Country Club, Belmont)
Motor City Open: Eight times between 1948-62 (last at Knollwood Country Club, West Bloomfield)
Buick Open: 1958-2009, excluding 1970-76 (mostly at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club, Grand Blanc)
Michigan Golf Classic: 1969 (Shenandoah Golf & Country Club, Walled Lake)
Rocket Classic: 2019-26 (Detroit Golf Club)
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Another Detroit comeback? Why PGA Tour might not be done here yet
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tony Paul, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
