Ten dollars bought a membership in 1899, Henry Ford later paid his dues here, and Aretha Franklin is believed to have recorded an album in her house beside the seventh hole. The Detroit Golf Club at 17911 Hamilton Road, in a leafy neighbourhood beside the University of Detroit Mercy and the Palmer Woods Historic District, was founded in 1899 by piano-and-organ businessman William R. Farrand and a circle of friends, starting as a six-hole course on rented farmland at Six Mile and Woodward with membership capped at one hundred. The club grew fast: nine holes by 1900, an 18-hole course on 135 purchased acres by 1902, and the decisive leap in 1914 when philanthropist Horace Rackham donated 100,000 dollars for more land and the club hired Donald Ross - on the brink of his fame as America's great golf architect - to build two full courses. The North and South opened in 1916, the first 36-hole facility in Ross's records, and Albert Kahn's nearly 80,000-square-foot clubhouse followed in 1918. Ross's brother Alec, the 1907 US Open champion, served as head professional from 1918 to 1945, succeeded by two-time Masters champion Horton Smith until 1963. The member rolls track Detroit's history - Henry and Edsel Ford, mayor Dennis Archer, Hall of Fame running back Jerome Bettis, Justin Verlander - and since 2019 the club has hosted the Rocket Mortgage Classic, the first PGA Tour event ever played in the city of Detroit, on a composite routing of seventeen North Course holes plus one from the South, famous as one of the flattest walks on Tour. A 16-million-dollar master-plan restoration by architect Tyler Rae, approved in 2024 and running through 2026, is returning both courses to Ross's bold 1914 character - rebuilt greens recapturing lost pin positions, high-flashed bunkers in the 1920s style, restored drainage lines - following clubhouse renovations completed in 2020 and 2023. Private it remains, but tournament week each summer opens the grounds to the public, when the PGA Tour's stars walk fairways threaded between historic homes seven miles up Woodward from downtown - the old club and the rebuilding city sharing the same tee sheet.

Type: Golf Course

Address: 17911 Hamilton Road, Detroit, MI, United States, 48203

Website: https://www.detroitgolfclub.org

Opening Date: 01/01/1899

Serves Food

Outdoor Area

Gym