There’s a chance you’ll catch a glimpse of Mark Douglas during the final round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
You just might spy the president of Detroit Golf Club relaxing on the back patio of his home, which is located along the ninth hole.
“So I’ll be in the vicinity,” he said. “Even though I may not be directly on the grounds, I’ll be nearby.”
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Imagine that. The president of the club that’s hosting a PGA Tour tournament can’t even get onto his own course because of the severe limitation of people who can be at the event.
Welcome to golf in the time of the coronavirus pandemic.
And it’s a shame because Douglas has a great story and message to spread about inclusion, diversity and overcoming the challenge of staging a major sports event while the world continues to grapple with COVID-19.
Detroit Golf Club was founded in 1899. And Douglas, the president of the Avis Ford dealership in Southfield, is the club’s 113th president. But he’s only the club’s third African American president.
During a normal year, the club and its leadership would have received a lot of media attention in the run-up to the tournament. But social-distancing guidelines scuttled plans to promote the club and the tournament with stories like Douglas’ that showcase a diverse membership.
“It obviously sends a good message in today’s environment with what we’re dealing with on a lot of fronts — racial equality and things of that nature,” Douglas said of his presidency. “It’s a positive story in a time when you don’t necessarily have a lot of positive stories to tell. So there was a hope that we could maybe put a little spin on that in a club that didn’t have any African American members until (1986).”
Former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young was the club’s first African American member, though it was an honorary social membership. That same year, longtime National Bank of Detroit (now Chase) vice president Walter Watkins joined as the first African American golf member.
Douglas’ father, Walter, became the club’s sixth African American member in 1987. Douglas, 53, was voted club president in October after he was encouraged to seek the position by his friend Lane Coleman, who served as the club’s second African American president in 2015. Coleman challenged Douglas to serve on the board as more than just a figurehead.
“Not only as an African American but as a leader in general it speaks to what we hope to do every day in work and other affiliations,” Douglas said. “You don’t want to be, I call them bobblehead-type board members, where you sort of just shake your head yes or no to whatever the leadership dictates.”
‘We got a little nervous’
Douglas had no idea how much his active and involved leadership would serve him as the club embarked on a major $4.5 million interior and exterior renovation in September in preparation for hosting the Rocket Mortgage Classic for the second year.
The club began preparing for this year’s tournament within a couple months of last year’s June tournament. When the PGA Tour halted play in March and suspended its schedule, the club faced some uncertainty.
“Initially we got a little nervous,” Douglas said, “because obviously we put a lot of work into things, even to that point.”
The key players and decision-makers involved in keeping the tournament on the PGA Tour schedule were the Tour itself and the sponsor, Rocket Mortgage. But the club did its own part through its willingness to move the tournament from May 28-31 to any other dates.
“The thing that was sort of to our benefit was that we were flexible,” Douglas said. “We’ve always maintained good lines of communication with the PGA and based on that we remained optimistic. And the other thing is they never really told us no.”
The pandemic and the Tour’s suspension didn’t end up affecting the club’s preparations much because a lot of the work, like organizing volunteers, was well underway since December. And the club’s main contribution to the tournament — the course — wasn’t affected because superintendent Jake Mendoza was able to continue his work.
“Jake really did a great job of getting the course in condition,” said Douglas, adding that the initial no-cart rule from the state cut down the amount of play the course got and helped keep the course in great shape.
People want birdies or a train wreck
Nate Lashley, last year’s wire-to-wire champion, won the tournament by six shots at 25-under par. Douglas said the club viewed that score as an anomaly attributed to a player who just got hot. He thinks the winner this year likely will finish several strokes lower because of some course enhancements.
“High teens,” he said of the final winning score in relation to par. “We think that’s more realistically where things will be. Because, again, we did some changes to the course for this event specifically: added tee boxes, made certain holes longer.
“I mean, you’ve still got (7,300) yards-plus. And these guys don’t really enjoy trees.”
Tight, tree-lined fairways are certainly a challenge. But the famously difficult and subtle Donald Ross greens, which feature crowned areas and false fronts, are the course’s main defense.
“In fact even last year (the Tour) wanted us to kind of slow the greens down at times,” he said. “They would have us roll certain areas as opposed to others so it wouldn’t get super fast, because we could make our greens a lot faster than what the pros sometimes see.”
Douglas said the greens could run as fast as a 13 or 14 on the Stimpmeter, a device that measures the speed of greens.
“But they asked us to keep our greens around 12,” he said, “when we could actually make them a lot faster, which would have made the course play a lot tougher.”
The reason for slower greens, Douglas said, is simple.
“The reality is people either want to see a lot of birdies or they want to see a train wreck — they want to see the winner at 3 under, right, for the whole weekend,” he said. “So based on that I think we catered to what we thought the audience would like to see and the PGA, we always have to sort of comply with what they request as well.”
Douglas has no problem with the slower greens and lower scores — and he’ll be ready to catch his share of birdies from his patio.
“So I’ll be at home,” he said, “and definitely Sunday watching and cheering the guys on.”
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.
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