At the 2025 Rocket Classic, Aldrich Potgieter twice hit a 9-iron for his second shot into the 17th hole at Detroit Golf Club. That hole was supposed to be a par 5. Architect Tyler Rae told The Detroit News his reaction was one word: "disappointing." One year later, 17 was a 537-yard par 4, and the pond on 14 had been filled in with native fescue. The PGA Tour saw that course for four days.
The eighth and final Rocket Classic ran July 30 through Aug. 2, 2026. Michael Thorbjornsen won it at 18 under, two strokes ahead of Xander Schauffele, for his first PGA Tour victory. For people who live along the Detroit Golf streets, the tournament leaves behind a rebuilt private course that now belongs only to its members. Across Woodward, a public park has been building its own summer calendar, and its biggest project is still ahead.
A $16.1 million restoration, kept by the members
Detroit Golf Club members approved the $16.1 million North Course restoration early in 2024. The PGA Tour had some input at the time, when the event looked like it had a long-term future. Ground was broken hours after the 2025 Rocket ended in late June. Rae oversaw the work with Sam Moynihan, the club's director of agronomy. They deepened the bunkers, enlarged the greens, added wispy fescue, lengthened the par 4s and brought back ditches on the Donald Ross layout.
The three holes that changed most show who the course was rebuilt for:
| Hole | How it played at the 2025 Rocket | After the restoration |
|---|---|---|
| No. 7 | Par 5, about 564 yards, easiest hole on the course | 505-yard tournament par 4, green moved right, big tree removed; par 4 for members |
| No. 17 | Par 5, about 575 yards, second-easiest hole | 537-yard tournament par 4 |
| No. 14 | Par 5 with the course's only water hazard, a pond in front of the green | Pond filled with native fescue |
Members now play the course as a par 71. The tournament setup was a par 70. Some of the most visible changes were infrastructure. Removing the pond and restoring cross-ditches 4 to 6 feet deep were part of upgrading the course's long-outdated irrigation infrastructure. "We always meant for this to be for the members, and make this golf course as great as it could be for the members," Rae said in the same Detroit News report.
The work isn't finished. The Detroit Golf Club website says plans for the South Course are "soon underway." It gives no dates.
Why the Tour is unlikely to come back to this course
Rocket chose not to exercise its option for 2027. Golf Channel tied the decision to the Tour's restructuring. Rocket did not want to spend $15 million a year on a second-tier event, or double that to join the proposed elite tier. The open date has already been filled elsewhere. The Detroit News reported that a Sompo-sponsored event at Silverado Resort's North Course in Napa, California, takes the slot July 29 through Aug. 1, 2027.
The Tour has said it still wants to be in Metro Detroit. A Detroit News follow-up in August said a return would need both a title sponsor and a venue, with talks on both. The paper's July reporting said a comeback is unlikely to happen at Detroit Golf Club, where members have been divided over the value of hosting a Tour event. So for the neighborhood, late July 2027 will most likely look like any other summer week on the course.
What the Rocket left behind, and where it went
Rocket used the final tournament week to announce a $4.5 million legacy gift. According to Rocket's announcement, the money is split this way:
- $3.5 million for affordable high-speed internet in Detroit Housing Commission communities, delivered with DigitalC and projected to reach up to 2,400 households and 6,000 residents
- $1 million for the Own the Dream Youth Scholarship Fund, which supports participants from College, Career & Beyond and First Tee of Greater Detroit, with endowed funds managed by the Children's Foundation of Michigan
That gift was on top of the more than $10 million Rocket says the tournament gave to Detroit nonprofits and community programs since 2019. The money goes citywide. None of it is earmarked for the blocks around the course. The closest documented grant came earlier: the 2024 Rocket Giving Fund report listed $75,000 for the Greater Palmer Park Community.
Across Woodward, the public summer ran on its own calendar
For the public part of a Detroit Golf summer, the place to look now is Palmer Park. The City finished rebuilding the Palmer Park Bandshell on June 27, 2025. The project added restrooms, event-support structures, a 60-space paved lot and connecting walking paths. The shell reuses parts of the old State Fairgrounds structure, and the City and its partners celebrated the opening on Aug. 23, 2025.
In 2026, its second season, the bandshell carried a calendar. People for Palmer Park ran free concerts there through Oct. 2, with September dates on the 4th, 11th, 13th, 20th and 25th. The group's community market ran every Wednesday from June 24 through Sept. 30, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m., in the DEN parking lot at the southwest corner of Seven Mile and Woodward. It had produce, baked goods, music, food trucks, children's programming and EBT acceptance. The market started more than a month before the Rocket and kept going for eight weeks after it. The park's tennis program ran camps from June 8 to Aug. 15, and tennis and pickleball tournaments on Sept. 4–6.
Some of that summer is still being built. People for Palmer Park's Aug. 9 "Light Up the Cabin" fundraiser raised money for the Log Cabin. The kitchen, stove, Dutch door, pocket doors, stained glass, electricity and period-style lighting have been restored. Woodwork, the staircase, the second floor and the exterior landscaping are still to come. At the south end of the park, the Lake Frances and Witherell Woods habitat work brought the lake back to its former water level in June 2024. The new meadows need repeated mowing through a three-year establishment period.
The next anchor arrives in 2027
The project most likely to define next summer at the south end of Palmer Park is the Merrill Fountain. It was given to the city in 1901, stood near the old Detroit Opera House, and moved to Palmer Park in 1925. It has been in disrepair for most of the century since. Stacy Varner, board president of People for Palmer Park, told WXYZ the group looked at repairs years ago but couldn't cover the cost. Detroit City Council approved $2.5 million to start the work in 2024. A separate $421,000 architecture and engineering contract with Giffels-Webster was approved in March 2025, Axios Detroit reported.
The plan restores the water features, repairs broken pieces and moves the fountain closer to a former substation near the park's southern entrance on Woodward. Rhea Bautista of the City of Detroit's Construction and Demolition Department explained the move to WXYZ:
"Moving it closer to the substation will give us a place to store the fountain pumps. As well as making sure we have the proper utilities, water, plumbing."
A second phase would add a plaza around the fountain. The City held a community update meeting on July 13, 2026. Here is the published schedule from today to summer 2027:
- Fall 2026: The project is expected to go out to bid.
- Spring or summer 2027: Construction is targeted to begin.
- July 29–Aug. 1, 2027: The Tour's former Detroit week is played in Napa.
- Later phase: A plaza around the relocated fountain.
The nearer dates are less settled. People for Palmer Park's WinterFest page still lists last year's Dec. 14, 2025, event, and no 2026–27 date has been posted. If People for Palmer Park repeats this year's schedule in 2027, the Wednesday market and bandshell concerts would overlap with the window the City has targeted for fountain construction.
If you own a home on the Detroit Golf streets and want to know how the end of the Rocket and the park work across Woodward fit into what your home is worth, City Living Detroit offers complimentary Real Estate Reviews, with comparable sales and an equity estimate for your block. Schedule a consultation.
