The Travelers Championship made for an exciting weekend, especially if you read last week’s Golf Betting Tips for the Travelers Championship. A week after a great showing at the U.S. Open, Chez Reavie followed up his best performance in a major championship with his second career victory on the PGA Tour. As we pointed out last Monday, Reavie gained strokes approach and tee-to-green at Pebble, so it wasn’t as if he was riding a hot putter — one of the reasons Reavie +6600 was one of our favorite online sports betting picks on the board. Let’s see if we can keep the streak alive with our PGA golf betting tips, as we breakdown the course and the PGA odds for the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
The Rocket Mortgage Classic Course — Detroit Golf Club
The Detroit Golf Club is a new stop on the PGA Tour schedule, which means we don’t have any course history to study. Scorecards and yardage books are even a little challenging to decipher, as the tournament has made a handful of alterations to lengthen the track. While 17 of the holes, most of which are rearranged, come from the club’s North Course, one of the adjustments includes making the first hole from Detroit Golf Club’s South Course the third hole this week.
At over 7,300 yards, Detroit Golf Club is the first Par 72 we’ve seen in nearly a month. Two of the Par 5s are between 525-550 yards, one at 567 yards and the longest hole on the course stretches 635 yards. It’s tough to predict how difficult the course will play, but the fairways are thin, and water will be in play on several holes. Additionally, spectators can find plenty of shade underneath the course’s Oak trees. Those trees might protect fans, but they won’t be as friendly to the golfers vying for their share of the $7.2 million purse.
At this point, the biggest question marks surround the thickness of the rough and the quickness of the greens, both of which will be clearer as we get closer to Thursday. Overall, we’ll be looking for better drivers of the ball than we have in recent weeks.
Favorites at The Rocket Mortgage Classic
Gary Woodland +1200 returns after a short celebratory tour from his U.S. Open victory. Woodland drank from both the bottom and the top of the U.S. Open Trophy as he traveled from Pebble to New York and back home to Florida. Lucky for Midwesterners, Woodland isn’t taking too long of a break. The question is, will a hangover come along with all those U.S. Open Trophy drink specials?
While Woodland was anywhere from +8000 to +10000 two weeks ago, the Kansas Jayhawk is right up there in terms of golf betting odds with the favorites like Rickie Fowler +1200 and Hideki Matsuyama+1400 at BetStars. Still, those guys pale in comparison to Dustin Johnson +600. With Koepka sitting this one out, Johnson is the highest ranked golfer in the field and has the highest implied win probability (14.3%) by a large margin.
I generally stay away from guys at the top when it comes to golf betting, but it sounds like the course will set up well for Fowler. It’s tough to find value with Johnson, but he’s finished inside the Top-5 in half of his last eight events. On the other hand, he finished 35th in the U.S. Open and 20th the week before. He has two wins and two runner-ups in 13 tournaments this year.
Those favorites are joined by last week’s champion Chez Reavie +2200. As you can see, Reavie’s odds made huge moves over the last few weeks, and rightfully so. Reavie is known to be a streaky golfer, but +6600 to +2200 in one week might be a bit too big of a jump, especially on this long of a course. From third place one week to a win the next, the window to find value on Reavie sure closed quickly.
The Rocket Mortgage Classic Mid-Tier Odds
Mid-tier golfers include Victor Hovland +4500 (DraftKings), Byeong Hun-An +5000 and Joaquin Niemann +5000, but my favorite early price is Aaron Wise +6600 at DraftKings Sportsbook. Wise is +6600 at DraftKings but only +4000 at BetStars. Wise looked exceptional in the first two rounds at Pebble Beach, shooting 5-under in the first round on his way to make his first U.S. Open cut. Brook Koepka’s prodigy was just four shots behind Woodland heading into the weekend. Unfortunately, Wise shot an 8-over 79 on Saturday but showed resiliency by responding with a 69 on Sunday. Despite his frustrating third round, Wise still finished T35th, which is much more impressive in context than if you just look at recent performances. The 22-year-old, who already has one PGA Tour victory, averaged 308 yards off the tee and hit nearly 70 percent of fairways. A driving performance like that will pay dividends this weekend and gives him a significant advantage against the field. It’d be wise to hop on this one early, as I don’t expect +6600 to last long.
An identical difference between the two sportsbooks comes with Kevin Tway’s prices. Tway had his best finish of the year at the Travelers, which included strokes gained just about everywhere. Much of that came from a hot putter, but he also gained 4.5 strokes tee-to-green. Tway is a long hitter who often has trouble finding his control. However, that was not the case as he hit two-thirds of his fairways. Tway has now made six cuts in a row and appears to be rounding into form.
It’s no surprise Hovland is becoming a popular bet after good showings at the U.S. Open and the Masters. That popularity has impacted his betting odds, which are down from +6600 at the Travelers to +4500 for the Rocket Mortgage Classic despite the 54th-place outing in his pro debut. Hovland is someone we know has the pedigree to win, but do we wait and hope to get better value while he becomes acclimated on tour? I wish we were getting a better price but FOMO is real. Because he continued to gain strokes off-the-tee and gained nearly six strokes tee-to-green, I’m not scared of
Byeong Hun-An missed last week’s cut after a T16 finish on the Monterey Peninsula.
Niemann didn’t travel to the West Coast for the season’s third major, but he did finish fifth at the Travelers. Niemann’s 6.5 strokes gained tee-to-green helped a solid putting performance. The young golfer is still looking for his first win on tour, and this is a venue where he can make it happen.
Rocket Mortgage Longshots
A little over a month ago, Harold Varner was in the final pairing of the PGA Championship with Brooks Koepka. The pressure of a major championship was too much for Varner to handle, as he shot an 81 in the final round. Fast forward and he’s +10000 to win the Rocket Mortgage classic after making back-to-back cuts at two courses that didn’t entirely fit his game. Other intriguing golfers in this range include Mackenzie Hughes +10000 and Jimmy Walker +10000, but my favorite longshot is Matthew Wolff +15000.
We wrote about Wolff last week, but unlike his Oklahoma State teammate Hovland, we’re getting a better price with Wolff seven days later. Similar to Wise who won it in 2016, Wolff is the most recent NCAA Division I individual champion. There’s not as large of a difference between Hovland and Wolff talent-wise as there is in their betting odds. Unlike TPC River Highlands, Wolff will be able to take advantage of four Par 5s and other long Par 4s with his driver.
We’ll update this with line movement news and where to find the best prices on these golfers, so be sure to check back on Wednesday.
And once again, if you’re looking for general golf betting tips, please refer to our PGA golf betting guide.