PGA DFS Core Plays: Rocket Classic
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various price ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building lineups around? Find out below!
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for the Rocket Classic
While my heart breaks for Tommy Fleetwood, the bankroll certainly didn’t seem to mind him bogeying his final hole. I had an outright on Keegan Bradley at +3500 and also had him in my main DFS lineup. I also had Russell Henley tagged as a core play, so it ended up being a very good week at the Travelers Championship. We have a fun stretch of golf the next 4 weeks, as we have the Rocket Classic, the John Deere Classic, the Scottish Open, and then The Open Championship.
The field is better than expected this week at the Rocket Classic. Collin Morikawa, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Cantlay, and Keegan Bradley are all set to tee it up in Detroit. This has been one of the easiest events on the PGA TOUR every year, and with very little wind in the forecast, that should be the case again this year. The cut line should be well under par, and the winning score should be in the -22 to -25 range.
Editor’s Note: For more tournament and course notes for the Rocket Classic, check out this week’s PGA DFS First Look. To get access to Noto’s PGA DFS Model Breakdown & Download link, which allows you to create your own projections, click here.
Detroit Golf Club is a Par 72 that measures 7,370 yards. Given how far golfers hit the ball these days, 7,400 yards isn’t much of a challenge. This event has historically set up well for bombers, and it’s easy to see why. The field hit driver on 77% of tee shots last year, the fairways are wide (36 yards on average), and there’s very little penalty for missing fairways. Essentially, golfers will be hitting a lot of drivers on a course where accuracy doesn’t matter as much as most weeks. Bombs away!
Even though the greens at this course are small (5,150 square feet), they are easy to hit in regulation. This has a lot to do with how soft the greens are and how wide the fairways are. If you give professionals approach shots from the fairway into soft greens, you should expect the greens in regulation rate to be very high. When this is the case, I tend to place a bigger emphasis on approach play and putting. If golfers are constantly having to scramble here, they’ll be in trouble.
In terms of course fit, I’m looking at Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, Driving Distance, Strokes Gained: Approach, Strokes Gained: Putting, and Birdie or Better %. If you have a subscription to the Rabbit Hole or want to check out my weekly model video, I am also looking at Strokes Gained on Very Easy Courses, Strokes Gained on Driver-Heavy Courses, and Strokes Gained on Par 72 Courses with high GIR rates.
Let’s stay hot this week!
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Core Plays
Patrick Cantlay
DraftKings: $10,200 / pOWN%: 17%
FanDuel: $11,800 / pOWN%:
Driving Distance: 55
Strokes Gained Approach: 3
Strokes Gained Around the Green: 64
Strokes Gained Putting: 33
Birdie or Better %: 20
Bogey Avoidance: 43
Cantlay has always had a strong all-around game, but his scrambling has been a major issue in 2025. Over the last 6 months, he’s 64th in this field in Strokes Gained: Around the Green. He has plenty of distance, he’s an elite iron player, and he’s an excellent putter. This week’s course should set up well for him, as these greens are very easy to hit in regulation. You don’t need to scramble a whole lot around this place. In his only appearance at this event, he finished runner-up in 2022.
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