Rip Mike Hill, Michigan Golf Legend

Jackson, Michigan, Mike Hill, who won three times on the PGA Tour and eighteen times on the PGA Tour champions, died on August 4, 2025 at the age of 86.

He was preceded in death by his brother Dave Hill, who won thirteen times on the PGA Tour and six times on the Pgat champions. Dave Hill died in 2001 at the age of 74.

Both brothers are members of the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.

The brothers grew up on a dairy farm next to the Jackson Country Club and were introduced in the game by Caddying.

Mike Hill was a veteran of the Air Force, who played golf on Jackson Junior College and Arizona State. Before he came to the PGA Tour, he worked as a beer car driver, in a tire shop and as a head pro at Tecumseh Country Club.

He joined the PGA Tour in 1968, nine years after his brother Dave. His three victories were open in 1970 in Miami, the Valero Texas Open from 1972 and the Ohio Kings Island open from 1977.

Mike Hill really hired it during the Senior Tour and won eighteen times, so he places the 14th of all time on that circuit. He also won the Legends of Golf Tournaments five times, together with Lee Trevino.

In his last PGA Tour Champions event in 2007 at the age of 70, Hill ended 21st

Hill was the owner of Hills Heart of the Lakes Golf Course in Brooklyn, Mi (near Jackson) and could often be seen there. The story is that he bought the course after cashing in the biggest check of his career by the biggest winner in the early 1990s.

Hills’ Heart of the Lakes is a fun course that I have played a number of times over the years. A good friend of mine comes from Brooklyn (MI) and when we play together, it is often on Hills’. (I also have a good friend from Brooklyn, NY, but that is a different story).

Here is a Mike Hill story that I received from my friend of Brooklyn (Mi):

My friend and his friends had a terrible time with the eighteenth hole, which is tight and with trees. It measures 280 and bends something well. The second shot is very steep uphill to a plateau in front of the green.

In any case, the group had a terrible time with the gap, got their drivers in uncomfortable places and scolded a storm about how much they hated it. At that moment a maintenance employee came by and said, “If you just play this gap smartly, it’s easy.” The employee then borrowed clubs and played with them, the gap apart picked with two precise irons.

Only then realized that the maintenance employee was Mike Hill and did fundamental grounds on his course.

I will have to go back soon to play Hills’ Heart of the Lakes.

Photocredit on top of page: Keith Allison van Hanover, MD, US, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativeecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0Via Wikimedia Commons

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