Opinion: Rocket Mortgage Classic has created magic by catering to Detroit’s sports-mad fans

DETROIT — Ten years after the Buick Open ended and Tiger Woods stepped off the 18th green for the last time, fittingly as the tournament’s final champion, I wondered what would become of PGA Tour golf when it returned to Michigan in 2019.

I wondered because the Tour was attempting a reboot in our state after a decade’s absence. It reminded me of a long-running television show attempting a spinoff series.

The Buick was a fun and quaint tournament at cozy Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club in Grand Blanc. You might still be able to find some leftover beer cans around the famously raucous 17th green.

The hope was the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club would be the Buick’s successful spinoff, like the way “Frasier” followed “Cheers.” But who knows? Maybe the Rocket would turn out to be “Joanie Loves Chachi.”

Instead, the Rocket became “The Simpsons” — such a wildly successful spinoff that it easily eclipsed, and perhaps erased, its great origin show. (Sorry, Tracey Ullman.)

As the Rocket kicks off its fifth year this week, it’s clear the tournament has done something most sporting events only dream of doing. It has created magic by blending an easily accessible metropolitan location in a sports-mad city at an affordable price in a cold-weather state that’s only too eager to bask in the sun and cut loose.

If you’ve been to the tournament, I’m not breaking any news. There’s an area near the back of the clubhouse where the putting green sits near a confluence of holes that is so jam-packed with cocktail-wielding patrons that you might mistake it for the French Quarter during Mardi Gras. And that’s a great thing.

Let’s be honest. There’s also huge upside to the tournament being held in a real city instead of some far-flung suburb. Yes, I’m talking about diversity. And you know the often overlooked group of people I’m talking about. That’s right: Canadians. I’ve run into more than a few of our hearty neighbors who venture north from Windsor to enjoy PGA Tour golf and exotic foreign beers such as Michelob Ultra.

One of the keys to the tournament’s success has been the way organizers have leaned into the event’s strength, which is its fans. They know they’re never going to get elite players like Woods, Rory McIlroy or Jon Rahm to play an easy course like Detroit Golf Club without an extraordinary incentive like a sponsorship deal with Rocket Mortgage.

The Rocket will still have a fine field, as it usually does, with a handful of top-20 players, led this year by No. 9 Max Homa, No. 14 and defending Rocket champion Tony Finau, plus the Detroit debuts of two major winners in No. 18 Justin Thomas and No. 19 Collin Morikawa.

Instead of hoping to lure the tippy-top elite players, the Rocket has gone after the fans by giving them cheap and plentiful access to watch birdies by the bushelful each day.

“We always wanted to get this to be more of a fan-deck experience, rather than a feature-type experience,” tournament director Jason Langwell told me recently.

To that end, the Rocket has added two viewing decks, which will bring the total this week to six viewing decks — all accessible with a basic ticket — which is more than any other PGA Tour event.

There are also three days free to fans with complimentary parking at Detroit Mercy: Sunday’s final round of the John Shippen National Golf Invitation, Tuesday’s celebrity scramble and Wednesday’s pro-am. Langwell said no other Tour tournament has three free days of access.

If you decide to actually fork over the big bucks for a ticket Thursday, you can pay $70 and bring up to four kids 15 and under for free. I’d say $14 a head is a pretty good deal — and one of the reasons the tournament seems to be swarming with people and especially youngsters.

Any sport knows young people are the lifeblood of its future. Lose kids now and it’s a lot harder to win them over as adults.

Langwell understands this. As a kid, he attended the Buick with his dad and would hang out at the driving range, hoping to catch a stray ball. As a grown-up tournament director, Langwell sees that same enthusiasm from fans in Detroit all these years later.

“I think that 10-year gap between the Buick Open and here penned up a lot of (fans) that we’re seeing play out in the energy,” he said.

It’s never easy following a success, even if it looks easy. After four years, the Rocket Mortgage Classic could tell you that.

After 34 years, so could Homer Simpson.