Early in life, Mike Hill often was in brother Dave Hill’s shadow.

Later in life, Mike Hill stood squarely on his own, becoming one of the greatest winners in the history of the PGA Tour Champions. Hill, who won three times on the PGA Tour and then 18 times on golf’s 50-and-older circuit, died earlier this week at University of Michigan Hospital, according to the PGA Tour.

Hill, a Jackson native, died Monday. He was 86.

“Mike Hill was one of the players who made the PGA Tour Champions so popular in the early 1990s as his name was seemingly on every leaderboard at a time he made winning a regular part of his game,” PGA Tour Champions president Miller Brady said in a statement this week. “We are saddened by Mike’s death, and we extend our condolences to his family while we look back fondly on his career.”

Hill grew up in Jackson and graduated from St. Mary’s High School in 1957, before joining the Air Force. He later attended Jackson Junior College, and then Arizona State, both on golf scholarships.

According to his obituary, after school, Hill drove a beer truck, worked at a tire shop and was a head pro at Tecumseh Country Club before he joined the PGA Tour in 1968.

Older brother Dave Hill already had won times on the PGA Tour (of his 13 titles) by the time Mike Hill joined the PGA Tour. Mike Hill’s breakthrough win came in 1970 at the Doral-Eastern Open Invitational, when he won by four strokes over Jim Colbert. Hill won again in 1972 and 1977, beating Lee Trevino and Tom Kite in the San Antonio Texas Open and Ohio Kings Island Open, respectively.

In 1989, Hill joined what then was called the Senior Tour, and that’s where he found his greatest success. He won his first Senior Tour event in 1990, and finished with 18 titles in all. To this day, that still ranks tied for 14th all-time, with Bruce Fleisher, Jay Haas and Steve Stricker.

During that 1990 season, Hill won five times on the Senior Tour. In 1991, he again won five times, and won more than $1 million, even more than Corey Pavin won as the leading money winner on the PGA Tour.

Hill won at least once every year on the Senior Tour through 1996, and was 5-1 in playoffs. He also teamed up with Trevino, the World Golf Hall-of-Famer, to win the Legends of Golf five times from 1991 through 2000.

In total, he had 27 professional victories. His last PGA Tour Champions appearance came in 2007, at age 70, when he finished 21st at the Commerce Bank Championship in New York.

Hill was inducted into the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame in 1992; his brother Dave was inducted in 1995.

“Dave became the best golfer in the family, and he deserved it because he worked so hard on his game,” Mike Hill once said, according to a story on PGATour.com.

“Sometimes I kind of leach off Dave’s knowledge of the game and the courses.”

The Hills grew up on a dairy farm in Jackson, right next to Jackson Country Club. Mike Hill’s introduction to the game was at the country club, as a caddie. He went on to more than $8 million on the PGA Tour Champions circuit. He won more tournaments on the 50-and-older tour than the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Raymond Floyd. He played in 14 majors on the PGA Tour, including two Masters, and had four top-20 finishes, with a best showing of tied for 11th at the 1974 PGA Championship.

Hill “remained a farm boy at heart,” according to his online obituary, and he also owned Hills’ Heart of the Lakes Golf Course in Brooklyn. Hill split his free time between working on the course and his 150-acre farm, according to his obituary. He still is listed as the course’s PGA professional. He lived in Clarklake.

Hill is survived by wife Sandy; the two were married for 58 years. He also is survived by children Kristen and Michael, brother George, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Dave Hill, who also won six times on PGA Tour Champions, died in 2011, at the age of 74.

A celebration of life for Hill is scheduled for Aug. 17, 1-4 p.m., at Hills’ Heart of the Lakes Golf Course.

tpaul@detroitnews.com

@tonypaul1984

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