PGA DFS Core Plays - DraftKings & FanDuel: Rocket Mortgage Classic
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
Rocket Mortgage Classic
The PGA Tour season is quickly coming to an end, as the playoffs start in two short weeks. This is the time of year where golfers on the bubble of the FedExCup standings need to play well in order to secure their tour cards for next season and where elite golfers are looking to put themselves in a good spot in order to have a shot at the $15 million grand prize at the Tour Championship. This week we head to Detroit for the Rocket Mortgage Classic. The field is much stronger than we saw last week and there are plenty of big prize pools around the industry. We also have another LIV event that will start on Friday. I will have showdown articles posted for premium members.
Detroit Golf Club is a Par 72 that measures 7,370 yards. It was designed by Donald Ross and shouldn’t pose much of a threat to the professionals in the field this week. Unlike last week, this course doesn’t have water hazards in play on 15 of the holes. In fact, water is in play one a total of one hole. You will see very few penalty strokes this week and consequently, very few double bogeys or worse. Golfers will see generous fairways off the tee (36 yards wide on average) and while you don’t have to be a bomber to play well here, it certainly doesn’t hurt. The penalty for missing the fairway isn’t too severe and you can hit driver on most of the holes. Add in the fact that there are four par fives and four short par fours and you can see a clear path for the bomb and gouge type of strategy.
Even though the greens here are smaller than tour average, we have seen a 75% green in regulation rate over the last three years at this course. For reference, that is one of the highest marks on the PGA Tour. More often than not, when greens are easy to hit for the entire field, it turns into a putting contest. The greens feature a mix of poa annua (80%) and bentgrass (20%) if you are interested in looking at putting splits. Essentially, those that don’t putt well on bermuda should feel more at home on these greens. Given the fact that this will be a birdie-fest and the fact that the greens are very easy to hit, I’m not putting much stock into scrambling this week.
There’s not much else to cover when it comes to the course. I will be looking for birdie makers, good putters, good drivers of the ball, and golfers that are in good form. Course history has very little importance this week (compared to other PGA Tour venues), but it certainly doesn’t hurt if golfers have played well here in the past. Essentially, I’m not discounting anyone that is playing this event for the first time. As always, best of luck and let me know if you have any questions.