Daily Fantasy Golf Course Primer: Rocket Mortgage Classic
The PGA Tour heads to the Midwest this week for the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. The 7,370-yard par 72 joined the PGA Tour rotation in 2019, filling a summer slot between the U.S. Open and the Open Championship, effectively replacing the Quicken Loans National that was annually held at Congressional Country Club. Moving the event to the sponsor's home state was a no-brainer and gave Tour pros a look at another course designed by legendary architect Donald Ross.
The course is an amalgamation of the North and South Courses at DGC, with some re-routing across the two tracks. So the tournament scorecard is not exactly as Ross might have intended in 1916, but then again, he hardly could have imagined Bryson DeChambeau winning an event at his course and mashing 360-yard drives along the way.
Water is in play on just one hole, the 555-yard par 5 14th, and it serves as a deterrent to would-be eagle-seekers. In two years, it's played as the third-easiest hole on the course relative to par, but it has the highest bogey rate (8.3%) and double bogey rate (1.1%) of the par 5s, according to stats from Fantasy National Golf Club.
Rain in the forecast throughout the early part of the week and into Thursday should soften the course and make for some low scoring once the nice weather hits over the weekend. Things could change of course, but for now, the late Thursday/early Friday wave likely has the advantage.
Let's dig into the course and see what stats we can use to build our daily fantasy lineups this week.
Course and Tournament Info
Course: Detroit Golf Club
Par: 72
Distance: 7,370 yards
Fairways/Rough: Bentgrass and poa annua mix in the fairways, with bluegrass in the rough
Greens: Bentgrass and poa annua mix
In its two years on Tour, Detroit Golf Club has played as one of the easiest courses each season. The course length is exaggerated by a few longer par 5s, which as we've seen time and time again are still birdie opportunities. The consistently hardest holes for PGA Tour pros are long par 4s, and there are none in sight this week. Four par 4s are less than 400 yards and the longest is the 461-yard sixth.
The past two winners have reached 23- and 25-under par, and while they each won by a wide margin -- a three-stroke win in 2020 and a six-stroke win in 2019 -- plenty of golfers piled up birdies all week. In 2019, 16 golfers reached at least 15-under par, and 11 reached that mark in 2020.
Detroit Golf Club is tied at the hip to TPC Twin Cities (3M Open) because they debuted on Tour the same year and within a few weeks of each other, each with fields of below average strength. The link has played out on the leaderboard as well, with Matthew Wolff winning the inaugural 3M Open in 2019 and finishing as the runner up at the Rocket Mortgage Classic last year.
The other course with similar field strength and spot on the calendar would be TPC Deere Run (John Deere Classic), though we are light on data to back up any correlation with just two years of the Rocket Mortgage Classic and the John Deere Classic canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sedgefield Country Club (Wyndham Championship) is another Ross design, and we could look to golfers who've had success there if we think the architect is enough to link two otherwise dissimilar tracks.
Key Stats
These stats will prove vital to success in the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club.
| Key Stats for the Rocket Mortgage Classic |
|---|
| Strokes Gained: Tee to Green |
| Strokes Gained: Approach |
| Strokes Gained: Par 5s |
| Birdies or Better Gained |
We still don't have enough history here to get a real feel for what it takes to compete aside from the tried and true scoring formula. A tee-to-green profile that is weighted toward approach play is the way to go, and most of those names are also atop the birdie-makers list.
Par 5 performance certainly stands out and is correlated to the best long approach players. Finding eagle opportunities and either closing the door or tapping in for birdies is essential if the winning score is going to crack 20-under par. Last year, the top two golfers in strokes gained on par 5s finished second and first, and the top three on par 5s in 2019 finished third, fifth, and fifth, with the winner just behind them.
Course History Studs
This event is just two years old, and both winners are in the field this year. DeChambeau did not play in 2019 but won last year, while Nate Lashley won the inaugural edition but missed the cut in his title defense last season.
The best course form belongs to two streaky approach specialists -- Doc Redman was the runner up in 2019 and finished T21 last year, while Sepp Straka was T11 in 2019 and T8 in 2020.
Hideki Matsuyama is one of the biggest names in the field and managed respectable finishes in both installments so far, finishing T13 in 2019 and T21 last year.
The only other golfers in the field that finished inside the top 30 in both editions are J.J. Spaun, Brian Stuard, and Cameron Tringale.
Mike Rodden is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Mike Rodden also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mike_rodden. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
