Detroit ― With its long-term future on shaky ground, the Rocket Classic is shaking things up in a big way.
Detroit’s first and only annual PGA Tour tournament is changing its high-level leadership, in a significant effort to bring back the buzz for an event that’s not guaranteed beyond 2026. The biggest move: Mark Hollis, the visionary former Michigan State athletic director who brought basketball to an aircraft carrier and hockey to an open-air football stadium, is taking over as tournament director and co-executive director of the Rocket Classic for 2026.
Hollis informed the leadership at Detroit Golf Club, host of the Rocket Classic, of the changes in a memo last week, and confirmed the personnel moves to The News on Monday. Intersport, a Chicago-based marketing and events company, ran the Rocket Classic as a third-party entity since the tournament’s debut in 2019. Intersport confirmed the split.
The changes come at a critical time for the Rocket Classic, which is entering its eighth and potentially final year, with no contract beyond 2026. There is an option for 2027 that has not yet been picked up, as Rocket continues to monitor the future of the PGA Tour under new CEO Brian Rolapp, who was on site at the 2025 Rocket ― a year when attendance for the tournament was believed to have been its lowest (not including the fan-less COVID year, 2020), and when tournament revenues fell well short of projections.
“Everybody needs to stand up. Rocket, the Tour players, the PGA Tour, the broadcast group, and, frankly, the fans and the local support,” Hollis told The News. “If we all rise together, it’s better for Detroit.
“This is a community event, not just a Rocket event.”
As part of his new role, Hollis, who is chief operating officer for Rocket Entertainment Group, will be responsible for recruitment of PGA Tour players. While the Rocket has a roster of great champions and never has been short on story lines, the fields have been, by and large, underwhelming, and they’ve gotten worse since the player exodus to LIV Golf, and since the PGA Tour designated select tournaments on its schedule as “elevated” ― with far bigger prize payouts, to go with obligations for the best players to play. Detroit’s tournament is not an elevated tournament.
The PGA Tour is believed to be considering a less-is-more model under Rolapp, who came over from the NFL ― he was a key player for Detroit’s NFL Draft in 2024. The Tour might soon be scaling well back the number of tournaments on its regular-season schedule, from the upper-30s to the low-20s, with a focus on the country’s top media markets. Detroit is a top-15 media market.
That structure certainly would lead to better fields for the tournaments that survive, and Rocket would be interested in that model. But Rocket also wants the event to be seen as a big deal not just for Detroit, but by Detroiters, and the momentum clearly has halted in recent years. So, fan experience is another big focus for Hollis.
In short, things are going to change, just months, notably, after local golf fans were treated to a wildly different ― and fun ― experience at the boisterous, booming and booze-filled LIV Golf team championship in Plymouth Township.
“There’s a lot of unique things we can do to really just create a different vibe,” Nic Barlage, CEO of Rocket Entertainment Group, told The News. “We’ve got a lot of ideas.
“We’re really excited about reimaging this, evolving this, and building off that great foundation.
“People want something that’s a little bit different, and that’s what we’re going to deliver.”
Hollis, Barlage and a team of between 20 and 25 Rocket employees are taking over the operations for the 2026 tournament. Hollis and Barlage have been to every Rocket, and have advised and consulted throughout the years, before taking on these bigger roles. Barlage, with years of experience managing Dan Gilbert’s portfolio of Cleveland entertainment entities, including the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, will be involved in all aspects of the 2026 Rocket, with a strong focus on elevating the fan experience. Hollis and Chris Presson will be co-executive directors, with Presson also the chief revenue officer. Doug Buser will head marketing, and Camille Klein will manage finances and businesses.
Most PGA Tour tournaments are operated by third-party vendors, like Intersport, but Rocket, with its vast experience in entertainment and with the fate of Detroit’s pro golf tournament in limbo, decided it was in its best interest to take over. Rocket pays more at least $13 million a year be a title sponsor on the PGA Tour, and has for over a decade. Preceding the Rocket was the Quicken Loans National outside of Washington, D.C.
Gilbert pumped tens of millions into the PGA Tour with the expectation that Detroit one day get its own tournament, which happened in 2019 ― filling a decade-long void in the golf-starved state of Michigan since the Buick Open last was played at Warwick Hills Golf & Country Club in Grand Blanc in 2009.
It’s up to Hollis, Barlage and Co. to show there’s still big value to be had for all of major stakeholders ― including Rocket, Detroit Golf Club, the PGA Tour and CBS, which broadcasts the tournament, but not just limited to them.
“This is Dan’s event, and if there’s anybody who cares about this city more than him, I’d like to meet them,” Hollis told The News. “That’s the drive that we have behind this.”
Hollis, 63, from his decades in sports, including a long stint as athletic director at Michigan State, will lean heavily on his Rolodex to get the best field he can for Detroit in 2026. The tournament does have a built-in advantage there, in that the tournament was moved back from its traditional spot, to July 30-Aug. 2, to give more time following the significant, $16 million renovation to Detroit Golf Club’s historic Donald Ross North (tournament) Course. The tournament will be played right before the PGA Tour playoffs, meaning players on the bubble will need to play to assure themselves a spot in the three-tournament run that carries a prize pool of more than $100 million. That’ll include some big players having a down year, like when Justin Thomas played the Rocket for the first time in 2023.
The field helps sell tickets, but that’s not all. A promised (and delivered) fan experience is key, too, and Rocket officials acknowledge things have been lacking there, if not specifically in words, then with this major change in leadership. There are tentative plans for more music, maybe even a full-blown concert, in 2026; there are talks of a fairway fashion show in an era where golf fashion has absolutely exploded, a movement that has been led, in part, by the likes of Detroit-based Greyson Clothiers, a longtime Rocket Classic sponsor; Rocket wants fans to be much closer to golfers, which proved to be super popular among fans at the August LIV event at Saint John’s Resort; there is talk of making the driving range more accessible to fans, maybe via shuttles; perhaps utilizing the DGC clubhouse pool; and more. Think more of a party atmosphere, even if not as frat-party as LIV.
The PGA Tour doesn’t announce official attendance figures, but the 2025 Rocket ― despite the dramatics by then 20-year-old Aldrich Potgieter, who won in a five-hole playoff ― was believed to be the worst-attended tournament in its history, excluding 2020. That didn’t dissuade Rolapp, who saw first-hand, from his time with the NFL and the 2024 Draft, just what kind of atmosphere Detroiters can create.
“The momentum behind the city is fantastic,” Rolapp told The News in June.
“It is a great sports city. It’s a great sports state.”
More than 40,000 fans attended the LIV Golf event at The Cardinal in Plymouth Township in August. It’s not clear if that was more than the 2025 Rocket, which is tougher to gauge because it’s played practically un-up to sun-down over four days, while LIV Golf is played in a five-hour window over three days, so fan gathering is more condense. But the optics, certainly, weren’t great from the Rocket’s perspective.
Then there is the corporate side of things, and that’s where most of the revenue is generated. The 2025 Rocket Classic fell significantly on that front, not reaching the projections to match the massive infrastructure buildout, Hollis confirmed. Asked if the 2025 Rocket Classic lost money for the first time in its history, Hollis wouldn’t confirm or deny.
“We were disappointed where the projects were and what the realities were,” Hollis said. “Corporations, including Rocket, have to make some tough decisions on where they spend their dollars in this marketplace.
“I can speak for myself: I was personally disappointed with where we finished.
“You can’t build big and earn low.”
The Rocket Classic, despite revenue shortcomings, still plans to announce a charitable donation for 2025, with that number expected to be released in January. The Rocket Classic has raised more than $10 million for local nonprofits, much of that going to bridge Detroit’s digital divide, which is another massive point of pride for Gilbert and Rocket ― with the Rocket being the only PGA Tour tournament played in a predominantly Black city. Atlanta, home of the Tour Championship, has a plurality of Black residents.
In his memo to DGC last week, Hollis said Rocket has the support of the PGA Tour in this leadership venture, and Hollis confirmed that to The News. The PGA Tour long has been strict on deciding what’s allowed and what’s not, though Rolapp’s arrival could loosen the strings a bit, and Hollis said he feels comfortable pushing the envelope more.
That’s a noteworthy declaration from the man who brought you the “Cold War,” “Basketball” and the “Carrier Classic.”
“Everything we do across all of Dan Gilbert’s sports and entertainment assets or platforms, the No. 1 thing we focus on is the fan experience,” said Barlage, who splits his time between Cleveland and Detroit (he jokes he’s bi-coastal, that coast being on Lake Erie), and also is one of the key players behind the downtown Detroit Cosm development, which broke ground in April and aims to bring more than 400 sports and entertainment events to the city, including Cosm’s footprint in Campus Martius “We want to create a fan experience that’s immersive, that things about the fan first.
“We’ve got a strong foundation at the Rocket Classic. … We want to be able to have something for every demographic.
“We’re in creation mode.”
Hollis was athletic director from 2008-18, before his sudden retirement amid the intense ― and rightful ― heat of the Larry Nassar scandal and fallout. Hollis believed somebody at Michigan State needed to say and do something, so he did both himself, leaving the job he loved more than anything in the world. Gilbert quickly brought him aboard as a consultant in 2018, and he officially joined Rocket’s leadership team in 2019. Hollis is Gilbert’s right-hand man when it comes to Rocket’s involvement in marquee events in Detroit, whether it’s the Rocket Classic, the Detroit Grand Prix or the Final Four, which returns to Ford Field in 2027.
Whether the Rocket continues in 2027 and beyond is a topic for another day, Hollis and Barlage said. There have been talks about an extension with the PGA Tour, which wants Detroit to stay on the schedule. Rocket is waiting to see what that PGA Tour looks like, in this day and age when LIV Golf, which poached some of the game’s biggest names with its bottomless supply of Saudi Arabia money, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and doesn’t appear poised to merge with the PGA Tour, as once was the plan.
DGC’s membership is said to be split on the Rocket, many members liking the prestige that comes to belonging to a club that hosts the PGA Tour and getting to see said club shown off on national TV, while other members irked by disruptions to their golf created by the tournament. Hollis said he has plans to address those concerns, including being cognizant of when grandstand and tent buildouts are happening, and getting members better access to the event.
“It’s the members’ course,” Hollis said of DGC, which, it’s worth noting, has benefited greatly from the tournament; since 2019, membership has exploded, and DGC has undergone major renovations to the clubhouse and course.
“(The Rocket) needs to have value to all the partners in order for the event to be successful.”
And for 2026, that means one less partner ― Intersport, which was pivotal in launching the Rocket, led by Jason Langwell, who was tournament director the first six years.
Langwell left Intersport after the 2024 Rocket to join TMRW Sports, where he helped launch the Tiger Woods- and Rory McIlory-backed TGC last year. He is TMRW Sports’ chief revenue officer. Intersport’s Brittany Jeanis was the Rocket’s tournament director in 2025.
Details of Intersport’s contract with Rocket were not disclosed. Intersport long has had a portfolio in golf events, and runs the PGA Tour Champions’ World Championship Cup, won by Team Europe in Bradenton, Fla., on Sunday. The Rocket Classic was its most-visible golf endeavor.
“After seven years of operating the highly awarded Rocket Classic, an event that has generated millions of dollars for the Detroit community, Intersport and Rocket have concluded their partnership,” Intersport said in a statement provided to The News. “We are proud of the lasting community impact created through the Rocket Classic and The John Shippen, and we wish the Rocket continued success with the tournament and the important causes it supports.”
With the end of the Rocket and Intersport partnership comes the end of The John Shippen in Detroit, too. Intersport owns the Shippen, which debuted in 2021 as a pre-Rocket tournament created to open opportunities for Black golfers. Since 2021, the winner of the Shippen has been awarded a spot in that year’s Rocket. Eventually, a women’s Shippen was created, too, giving multiple exemptions into LPGA events, including the Meijer Classic outside of Grand Rapids and the Dow Championship in Midland. Rocket is exploring options to continue similar efforts in Detroit, Hollis said.
In short, just about everything’s on the table ― down to every last detail, both big and small, including easier more-convenient parking and misting stations on the course ― for the 2026 Rocket Classic.
Because after all, beyond 2026 ― just like when you hit that first tee shot ― nothing’s guaranteed.
“I hope 20 people give us 20 more ideas,” said Hollis, who becomes the second member of his family to be a tournament director on the PGA Tour ― son, T.R., who started at the Rocket Classic, is tournament director of the ISCO Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. “Dan has one of his lines: Money follows, it doesn’t lead. What it’s following is a great experience for Detroit Golf Club members, a great experience for all those corporations and a great experience for all those fans. If you do those things, the tournament will be self-sustaining.
“You’re a player, I’m a player. It’s so critically important that golf is a part of the landscape here.
“Golf is so important in the state of Michigan.”
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
