DETROIT – Joe Hooks grew up playing at Detroit Golf Club, and now he’ll get the chance to make his PGA TOUR debut on his home course.

Hooks will play in the PGA TOUR’s Rocket Classic this week after earning an exemption this weekend by winning THE JOHN SHIPPEN Men’s Invitational Presented by Rocket. Hooks will tee it up alongside the world’s best golfers at the Rocket Classic starting Thursday after shooting 68-66, 134 (10-under-par) on the same course Saturday and Sunday to earn a three-stroke victory at the SHIPPEN event.

Hooks, 32, grew up in Southfield and Commerce Township, Michigan, and is a 2011 graduate of the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, just two miles from Detroit Golf Club. He was an all-state selection as a junior and senior, and estimated he has played more than a thousand rounds at DGC throughout his life. He started playing the course at seven years old, and during summers, his parents would drop him off at the course on their way to work and pick him up on the way home.

“Unreal. You can’t write it any better,” Hooks said when asked to describe his emotions after the final putt dropped and how he felt looking ahead to making his PGA TOUR debut at his home course. “We used to talk about PGA TOUR events maybe coming here when I was younger, so it’s crazy that there is one here now and I get to play in it finally.”

Hooks graduated from Wayne State University. He turned pro in 2017 and has since won four times on the Advocates Professional Golf Association (APGA) Tour. He has played in THE JOHN SHIPPEN four times, with his best previous finish being a tie for fifth. He held a one-stroke lead over four players after Round 1 Saturday, and played a steady round Sunday that saw him pull away with a stretch of three birdies in four holes on the back nine. He got up and down from a fairway bunker on the par-4 16th, hitting his 141-yard approach shot to four feet and then holing the birdie attempt.

Kevin Hall was second at seven-under par, Marcus Smith was third, and Aaron Grimes and Kieron van Wyk tied for fourth. In addition to the exemption, Hooks took home the $20,000 winner’s check from a purse put together by The Johnny Committee, made up of Detroit Golf Club members and their networks. For THE JOHN SHIPPEN Women’s Invitational Presented by Dow earlier this month, members of Plum Hollow Country Club, this year’s host course, provided a purse.

“You never know when it’s going to be your time,” Hooks said. “Being born in the city and growing up in the city ... everything about me is rooted in Detroit. To have this moment right now, finally, is surreal.”

Hooks said an event like THE JOHN SHIPPEN is important to supporting diversity in golf.

“Golf won’t have more diversity and Black representation unless you keep drawing more from underprivileged communities,” he said. “I’m talking about it at all levels. There is probably more high-level talent now than ever as far as Black golf goes, and there are still none of us on the PGA TOUR. So, you have to have more kids interested from the communities that are full of Black players. I think that’s going to be how golf will continue to change over the next couple decades. That’s why I take what I do as a professional golfer so seriously.”

THE JOHN SHIPPEN is a series of competitions created to provide playing opportunities on the LPGA Tour and PGA TOUR for the nation’s top Black amateur and professional women and men golfers. The series includes THE JOHN SHIPPEN Women’s Invitational Presented by Dow and THE JOHN SHIPPEN Men’s Invitational Presented by Rocket. The events are named after John Shippen, Jr., who was both the first American-born golf professional and the country’s first Black golf professional.

Intersport, a leading Chicago-based sports marketing and media agency, partnered with Woods & Watts Effect in 2021 to create THE JOHN SHIPPEN - a series of competitions created to provide playing opportunities on the LPGA Tour and PGA TOUR for the nation’s top Black women and men golfers.

THE JOHN SHIPPEN was created to identify historical barriers, expand Black representation in golf, and address the lack of Black representation in business and leadership roles within the golf and larger sports industry for people of color. The events are named after John Shippen, Jr., who was both the first American-born golf professional and the country’s first Black golf professional.

Since 2021, more than 100 of the nation’s best Black women and men golfers have competed in THE JOHN SHIPPEN. THE JOHN SHIPPEN has awarded 19 playing opportunities on the PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour, and donated more than $300,000 to local charities, scholarships and fellowships. SHIPPEN alumni continue to see success beyond the National Invitational through player-earned memberships on the PGA TOUR Champions, PGA TOUR Americas and Ladies European Tours.

In 2022, Women’s Invitational champion Sadena Parks paired with 2021 winner Uwadia at the Dow Invitational and finished tied for 36th, becoming the first SHIPPEN champions to make a cut after securing a start in an event based on their results at THE JOHN SHIPPEN.

The 2023 season was another historic one for THE JOHN SHIPPEN, as, for the first time in the event’s history, the Men’s champion, Johnson, made the cut at the PGA TOUR’s Rocket Classic.

Last year, Women’s Invitational champion, Georgia Oboh, teamed with Lakareber Abe to finish tied for eighth at the Dow Championship, the best finish in an LPGA Tour or PGA TOUR event for a SHIPPEN winner. The 2024 season was also a notable one for a former SHIPPEN winner, as Tim O’Neal, the 2021 Men’s Invitational champion, secured his first victory in a PGA TOUR Champions event, winning the Dominion Energy Classic. It marked the first victory for a former winner of a SHIPPEN event on one of professional golf’s top tours.