Mike Hill: PGA Tour Winner, Senior Tour Star
Mike Hill was a PGA Tour player in the 1960s and 1970s, and Senior Tour star in the 1990s. He was the younger brother of a more-famous older brother on the PGA Tour, but once he joined the Senior Tour Mike became the Hill family's bigger star.
Full name: Michael Joseph Hill
Date of birth: January 27, 1939
Place of birth: Jackson, Michigan
Date and place of death: August 4, 2025, in Ann Arbor, Michigan
In the Majors
From 1970 to 1980, Hill played in 14 majors: two Masters, three U.S. Opens, and nine PGA Championships. He had no Top 10 finishes. His best showing was tied 11th in the 1974 PGA Championship. He also finished in the Top 20 in the PGA Championships of 1970, 1975 and 1976.
His Biggest Wins
Mike Hill had three official tournament victories on the PGA Tour:- 1970 Doral-Eastern Open Invitational
- 1972 San Antonio Texas Open
- 1977 Ohio Kings Island Open
- 1990 GTE Suncoast Classic
- 1990 GTE North Classic
- 1990 Fairfield Barnett Space Coast Classic
- 1990 Security Pacific Senior Classic
- 1990 New York Life Champions
- 1991 Doug Sanders Kingwood Celebrity Classic
- 1991 Ameritech Senior Open
- 1991 GTE Northwest Classic
- 1991 Nationwide Championship
- 1991 New York Life Champions
- 1992 Vintage ARCO Invitational
- 1992 Doug Sanders Kingwood Celebrity Classic
- 1992 Digital Seniors Classic
- 1993 Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate Challenge
- 1993 PaineWebber Invitational
- 1994 IntelliNet Challenge
- 1995 Kroger Senior Classic
- 1996 Bank One Classic
More About Mike Hill
Mike Hill was the younger brother of Dave Hill, who was the more accomplished PGA Tour player: Dave won 13 PGA Tour titles compared to Mike's three titles. But on the Senior PGA Tour (Champions Tour), Mike was the better of the brothers. On the senior circuit, Mike won 18 times compared to Dave's six wins.As of this writing, the Hills are one of just 12 pairs or sets of brothers to both (or all) win on the PGA Tour. And they were the first pair of brothers to each record wins on the Champions Tour.
Mike grew up in Michigan, where his family's farm abutted a private golf club. Like his older brother, Mike got into golf first through caddying at that club. He played baseball and golf in high school, and dreamed of a pro baseball career. But after high school Mike spent four years in the U.S. Air Force, and during that time golf was the only game he could fit in.
When his hitch in the Air Force ended, Hill spent several years on the Arizona State University golf team. He turned pro in 1967, then took several stabs at PGA Tour Q-School. After finally making it, 1969 was his rookie year on the PGA Tour.
He was already 30 years old during that rookie season. And it was a solid one — Hill finished 55th on the money list.
Hill's first win on the tour happened in 1970 at the Doral-Eastern Open Invitational. The Doral was one of the prestige events on tour at the time, and he won by four strokes over runner-up Jim Colbert.
At the San Antonio Texas Open in 1972, then at the end of the tour season, Hill arrived needing a very good finish to move into the Top 60 on the money list and remain exempt for the following year. He had a great finish, holding off Lee Trevino to win by two strokes.
Hill finished 33rd on the money list for 1972 (after placing 32nd in 1970). But his career-best money list finish was 28th in 1974, a year in which he did not have any victories. But he was runner-up in the Texas Open that year, and tied big brother Dave for second place in the Southern Open.
Mike always stayed close to home (Jackson, Mich.), and early in the 1975 season he had a motorbike accident on the farm. That knocked him off tour for several months and he slid down the money-list standings.
But he still one win left in him. It happened in the 1977 Ohio Kings Island Open, where he scored 64 in the final round to pip runner-up Tom Kite by one stroke. The $30,000 first-place prize money was $10,000 more than he had earned in the year up to that point. Mike Hill also teamed with Dave Hill to tie for second place in 1977 Walt Disney World National Team Championship.
Mike finished in the Top 60 on the money list six times from 1968 through 1981. But he fell outside the Top 100 beginning in 1978, and by 1981 earned only $627 the entire PGA Tour season. For his PGA Tour career, Hill made 365 starts with the three victories. He finished second five times, had 22 total Top 5 finishes and 36 total Top 10 finishes.
When he turned 50 early in 1989, Hill joined the Senior PGA Tour. He made 32 starts with a best finish of second place, and finished ninth on the senior money list. (He did have a win in 1989, the unofficial-money Mazda Champions with partner Patti Rizzo. That tournament paired an LPGA Tour player with a Senior Tour player.) But over the following six years, Hill was one of the best players on the tour with 18 victories.
The first of those 18 senior victories was in the 1990 GTE Suncoast Classic, one of five wins for Hill that year. And the last of those five wins in 1990 was in the New York Life Champions, which is what the senior circuit's season-ending tour championship was named at the time. Hill also finished second four times, third three times, and was runner-up on the season-ending money list.
Then Hill won another five times in 1991, including, for the second year running, the tour's championship tournament, the New York Life Champions. He also finished second twice and had six third-place finishes. Hill led the money list for 1991 and was named the Senior PGA Tour Player of the Year. Hill was just the second golfer in Senior Tour history to top $1 million in single-season earnings, and he even earned more in 1991 than the golfer who led the regular PGA Tour in money.
Hill won three tournaments in 1992 (three seconds, two thirds, 22 of 29 starts in Top 10, fourth on money list); won twice in 1993 (four seconds, two thirds, sixth on money list); and once each in 1994 and 1995. The last of his 18 Champions Tour wins was the 1996 Bank One Classic.
Following the 1997 season, the one in which his streak of consecutive years with a victory ended, Hill's 18 wins tied him for seventh place all-time on the Champions Tour career wins list (he still ranks in the tour's all-time Top 20 today).
Five of those victories happened in playoffs. He got into six playoffs, losing just one, a five-way playoff in the 1996 Emerald Coast Classic, won by Lee Trevino. And speaking of Trevino, Hill and Trevino teamed four times to win the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf (1991, 1992, 1995 and 1996), not an official-money tournament. They also won the Legendary Division (60-and-over) of that event in 2000.
For his career on the Champions Tour, Hill made 382 starts with the 18 victories. He finished second 18 times, third 20 times, had 89 total Top 5 finishes and 149 total Top 10 finishes.
Hill made his last appearance on the Champions Tour in 2007, but he continued playing and teaching at the family's Michigan golf course. For decades, Hill had owned the Hills' Heart of the Lakes course in Brooklyn, Michigan.
Mike Hill is a member of the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame and the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
Sources:
Alliss, Peter. The Who's Who of Golf (affiliate link), 1983, Orbis Publishing.
Elliott, Len, and Kelly, Barbara. Who's Who in Golf (affiliate link), 1976, Arlington House Publishers.
Hills' Heart of the Lakes Golf Course. About Us, https://www.hillsgolfcourse.com/.
PGA Tour. Official PGA Tour Media Guide 1978, Biographies of Exempt Players, Mike Hill.
PGA Tour. The Tour Book 1982, Official Media Guide, Other Prominent Members of the TPA Tour, Mike Hill.
PGATour.com. Players, Mike Hill, Career Record, https://www.pgatour.com/player/01520/mike-hill.
PGATour.com. "Three-time TOUR winner, PGA TOUR Champions star Mike Hill dies," August 5, 2025, https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2025/08/05/three-time-tour-winner-mike-hill-dies-at-age-88.
Senior PGA Tour. 1998 Senior PGA Tour Official Media Guide, Player Biographies, Mike Hill.
