Founders Brewing Joins Hall Financial as Title Sponsors for Michigan Open

Golf is hot. Michigan golf is hot.

How hot?

Hot enough that the 13th largest brewery in the US has decided to co-sponsor the 2026 Michigan Open Championship.

Hall Financial will be a title sponsor for the fifth consecutive year. Make The Turn, a Detroit-based marketing firm, is once again a presenting sponsor for the championship.

The Michigan Section PGA, which administers the championship, expects this year’s purse to exceed $100,000.

The Michigan Open is an historic championship, first played in 1916. Among the winners are golf legends Walter Hagen, Al Watrous, Chuck Kocsis and Dave Hill. Other winners include more recent Michigan Golf Hall of Fame inductees Randy Erskine, Buddy Whitten, Lynn Janson, Jeff Roth, Tom Gillis and Scott Hebert. The PGA Tour’s Ryan Brehm is a three-time winner of the historic James D. Standish Jr. Trophy.

The 1955 Michigan Open, played at Washtenaw Golf Club, featured three major championship winners: Horton Smith (1934, 1936 Masters), Chick Harbert (1954 PGA) and Wally Burkemo (1953 PGA).

See a list of all Michigan Open winners.

Registration is open for the championship, which after nine qualifiers are played across the state this spring, will have a starting field of 156 of the state’s best Michigan PGA Section professionals, touring professionals and amateur golfers.

The 109th edition of the Michigan Open will be played June 8-11 on Shanty Creek Resort’s Cedar River course. Read GolfBlogger’s Cedar River course review.

The resort recently announced that Shanty Creek Ski and Golf Resort, LLC, acquired the resort from Trinidad Resort & Club, LLC.