2026 Ally Challenge News and Notes
By Tom Lang
GRAND BLANC – I went to watch some pro tour golf at the 9th annual Ally Challenge – and a patriotic event broke out.
Folds of Honor Friday launched the first round of the PGA Tour Champions golf tournament, complete with an Apache helicopter fly over, the national anthem, the local sheriff’s department presenting the colors and a huge 50 foot long American Flag lifted high by dozens of volunteers.
The Ally Challenge also presented Lt. Col. Dan Roony with a check for $170,000 to the Folds of Honor, Rooney’s charity designed to send children and spouses of American soldiers and first responders to college. Rooney said that two days before this event was the 19th anniversary of the founding of Folds of Honor in a room above his garage.
“We celebrate all that is accomplished by the fact we are not a Blue or Red country, but because we are Red, White and Blue,” Rooney said at the ceremony.
Rooney also teed it up to play in the tournament for the second consecutive year. He and PGA teaching pro Michael Block were granted sponsor exemptions.
Michigan Men:
The only Michigan man known to be playing in the field this year is Justin Hicks, a Wyandotte native and a former member of the University of Michigan men’s golf team. He now lives in Florida and works as a teaching pro. He qualified earlier in the week at Spring Meadows CC in Fenton.
Hicks finished round one at 1-over par, good for T57. That was after he reached a high of T7 when he was 3-under par.
I followed Hicks for his first nine holes, which were the back nine. He had two tremendous par saves on the first two holes, then rattled off three consecutive birdies. The birdies came on the par 4 12th, the par 5 13th, and on the 14th after he drove his tee shot into the greenside bunker, and the up and down was birdie number three.
Unfortunately, as golf goes, he gave back all three strokes on the par four 15th. His approach shot came up short in the greenside bunker, but a bad shot that got too much ball and not enough sand launched the ball over the green and almost out of bounds. He finished with a triple bogey. A three-putt bogey on the famous 17th hole led to the 1-over par round for the day.
Tom Gillis, another Michigan man who played many years on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour but retired here at the Ally Challenge in 2024, is heading back to the PGA Tour – this time as a caddie. He has been serving as caddy this sason mostly for George McNeill (and is so at Warwick Hills). But once the fall PGA Tour season begins, Gillis is moving over to serve on the bag of Tom Hoge.
Gillis retired due to injuries and back pain – pain he explained would flare up when he swings a golf club. But standing mostly upright to carry a bag doesn’t hurt, so he’s forging this new ‘career in golf’ on an as-needed basis to see what comes of it. McNeill has had a prosperous year climbing to 7th on the Charles Schwab Cup list, so Gillis has been able to pay college tuition bills recently for two of his kids. McNeill is currently T38 at 1-under par after round one.
The leaders are Vaughn Tayor at 9-under, John Rollins at 8-under, Padraig Harrington at 7-under, plus three players at 6-under tied for 4th: Ricardo Gonzalez, Paul Goydos and Michael Block. Two-time defending champion Stewart Cink is 5-under par, tied with four others.
