Phil Mickelson is not in the field for the 2026 Rocket Classic, the PGA Tour event that begins Thursday at Detroit Golf Club.
His name is missing from the final Rocket Classic under Rocket Mortgage sponsorship, and the Detroit grudge that may be keeping him away was never settled.
The tournament announced the bulk of its 145-player field on July 24, and Mickelson does not appear on it, according to the PGA Tour. Cameron Young, Russell Henley, Chris Gotterup, Wyndham Clark, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka are entered. So is defending champion Aldrich Potgieter.
Ten major champions and 21 players from the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking fill out the July 30-Aug. 2 lineup, according to Rocket Classic organizers. Four more spots go to a Monday qualifier. Rocket declined its option for 2027, ending an eight-year run in Detroit, as reported by Sports Business Journal.
The event debuted in 2019 as the first PGA Tour stop played entirely inside Detroit city limits, filling a gap left when the Buick Open folded in 2009. Nate Lashley won that first one, Bryson DeChambeau took the 2020 title and Rickie Fowler survived a playoff in 2023, according to Golf News Net reporter Ryan Ballengee.
Phil Mickelson’s Detroit Grudge Dates to 2021
Mickelson played the tournament exactly once, in 2021, weeks after becoming the oldest major champion in history. The week went sideways before he hit a shot. Rob Snell of The Detroit News published a story drawn from transcripts of a 2007 federal racketeering trial, in which testimony described a Grosse Pointe bookie cheating Mickelson out of $500,000.
“It was so much effort for me to be here. To have that type of unnecessary attack, it’s not like I care, I mean it happened 20-something years ago. Yeah, I don’t see me coming back,” Mickelson said at the time, as quoted by CBS Sports.
He walked back his statement a day later, allowing for a possible return if a fan petition reached 50,000 signatures and every signer committed to an act of kindness. The petition faded. Mickelson never came back, and commentary greeting this year’s field release still framed his absence around an apology from Detroit media that never arrived.
Mickelson’s 2026 Season Amounts to One Start
That Mickelson has chosen to stay away from the Rocket Classic does not come as a surprise. Mickelson appeared in a professional golf event just once all year, at LIV Golf’s South Africa event in March, where he tied for 48th at 7 under.
He missed all four majors for the first time in his professional career, per Golf Digest. He sat out the Masters, withdrew from the PGA Championship, received no special invitation to the U.S. Open and came off the Open Championship list at Royal Birkdale despite being exempt as a past winner until age 60.
“Phil continues to attend to a family health matter and is uncertain when he will be able to return to professional golf,” a spokesperson said, according to Golf Digest.
That statement followed reporting that Mickelson had left The Farms Golf Club near San Diego after a female employee accused him of nonconsensual contact. A later Skratch investigation by Alan Shipnuck detailed additional allegations stretching back a decade, reporting Mickelson’s camp dismissed as an “anonymously sourced drive-by shooting”.
Mickelson has held no PGA Tour status since joining LIV Golf in 2022, so any Detroit start would have required a sponsor exemption from a tournament he publicly disavowed. But no such exemption has been forthcoming.
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