Course Preview for the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic

The Rocket Mortgage Classic is a relatively new event on the PGA TOUR, with its first iteration taking place in 2019, just before the Covid outbreak. Since its inception, the event has been held at the Donald Ross-designed Detroit Golf Club, which plays as a relatively straightforward Par 72 and allows for much lower scoring than we see at most major championship courses or some of the tougher venues on the PGA.

The Rocket Mortgage is also one of three events left on the PGA Schedule before the Open Championship in late July and kicks off a summer lull in the schedule where we get non-signature events, in back-to-back weeks.

As such, the field this week will be mostly devoid of top players with only 10 of the world’s top 50 ranked golfers currently attending. Last year’s winner Rickie Fowler is playing, as is Cameron Young (who shot 59 last week) and Valero Open winner Akshay Bhatia. However, the field is filled with several lesser-named players who all stand a chance at competing this week thanks to an easier setup and lack of star power.

From a betting perspective, this does create some opportunity as these events tend to be more wide open and allow for more longshot winners. I landed on Cameron Davis at this event in 2021 (who went off as big as 150-1 at places), and the Rocket Mortgage has produced some close finishes and multiple longshot winners since inception (more on that below).

I’ll go over the course preview and how to approach this week for betting today (along with any trends worth noting) and highlight one golfer I like targeting for this week. Then, on Wednesday, I’ll go through my full betting card with outrights, placements, and whatever else sticks out for the week. 

Let’s dive in and get our Rocket Mortgage Classic week started!

Rocket Mortgage Classic 2024 Course Preview 

• Detroit Golf Club – Detroit, Michigan
• Par: 72, 7,370 yards
• Greens: Bentgrass / Poa Annua
• Fairways: Bentgrass / Poa
• Rough: Bluegrass
• Design: Donald Ross (1916)
• Renovation Architect (year): Robert Trent Jones, Arthur Hills, Bruce Hepner. Tyler Rae in 2025
• Defending Champion: Rickie Fowler

Detroit Golf Club is a flat parkland course located in the heart of Detroit. It was renovated and rerouted specifically so that it could be ready to host a PGA event back in 2019 and bring a yearly stop to the people of Detroit.

In terms of PGA venues, Detroit Golf Club is nothing special. It’s not hilly, overly penal, or all that difficult. It has some of the widest fairways on the PGA TOUR with driving accuracy stats that often climb well above the TOUR average. With such big landing areas, Detroit as a course is also what we’d typify as “driver-heavy” and for the pros, they’ll be able to take out the big stick here without much impunity (on most holes). As such, the venue has become somewhat of a hot spot for the PGA’s best drivers.

Bryson DeChambeau grabbed a win on Detroit Golf Club in 2020, the heyday of his grip it and rip era, and the runner-up that season – Matthew Wolff – employed a similar method. We’ve also seen other long hitters like 2021 champion Cameron Davis and 2022 runner-up Taylor Pendrith have success.

Still, that doesn’t mean you can be a long hitter and just cruise to a big week. We’ve seen plenty of shorter hitters go well going around this property by simply honing in with their mid to short irons and then putting above the field average on these somewhat tricky POA greens. 

Rickie Fowler picks up the championship trophy after winning the Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club in Detroit on Sunday, July 2, 2023.

Last year’s winner Rickie Fowler (who we can't classify as a big hitter anymore) won with that approach, gaining 7.6 strokes on approach shots for the week. His playoff combatant, Adam Hadwin, (+9.8 strokes putting), also a short hitter, took a similar path to his high finish. We’ve also seen names like Troy Merritt, Kevin Kisner, and Nate Lashley – who are all more approach-reliant players – all outperform at one time or another at Detroit. 

In this sense, while the lack of water or tight fairways does give more room to bigger hitters, Detroit is still what you’d describe as a more classic approach-driven venue. It just caters a little more to players with power off the tee than the usual classic venue does and provides those who can be a little wild off the tee with more leeway than they would get at similar-styled venues.

So how should we approach Detroit Golf Club for betting?

Detroit Golf Club has poa greens, four Par 5s, and four Par 4s that stretch over 450 yards. It will test players' longer approaches and also their ability to convert on the greens which aren’t necessarily going to be inviting for everyone, especially those used to playing on Bermuda surfaces.

Ideally, we’d want our golfer to have the following: 

• Decent off-the-tee stats (but do not need to be spectacular) (SG: OTT)
• High Birdie Rate
• Good to elite short and mid-range putting (5-10 ft, 10-15 ft) on poa
• Good to elite mid to long-range iron play (SG: APP and 175-200, >200)
• Some Course History (ideally)

Combining and weighing most of these stats into a model that targeted the last 50 rounds this week (heavier on approach and putting) gave me the following players as my top 10:

• Aaron Rai
• Akshay Bhatia
• Keith Mitchell
• Maverick McNealy
• Michael Kim
• Erik Van Rooyen
• Cameron Young
• Justin Lower
• Kelly Kraft
• Sam Ryder

With five years of course history now under our belts with Detroit Golf Club there is some course history to take note of. As of writing, here are the top 10 in total strokes gained at Detroit Golf Club since the first iteration back in 2019.

• Troy Merritt 
• J.J. Spaun 
• Chris Kirk 
• Taylor Moore 
• Cameron Davis 
• Taylor Pendrith 
• Rickie Fowler 
• Stephan Jaeger 
• Adam Schenk 
• Kevin Kisner

As we can see from the above list, power off the tee may not be as necessary as we think for sustained success at Detroit. While Cam Davis and Taylor Pendrith are names that stick out, the names at the top of this list (Merritt, Spawn, and Kirk) are three of the shorter hitters on the PGA. 

Finally, Since Detroit does have trickier bent/poa greens, I’ve gone and combined the two surfaces to give a top 10 in strokes gained putting stats, on bent/poa, over the short term. Here are the results:

• Beau Hossler
• Dylan Wu
• Taylor Montgomery
• Kevin Kisner
• Aaron Baddeley
• Maverick McNealy
• Seonghyeon Kim
• Harry Hall
• Min Woo Lee
• Brendon Todd

There are lots of great putters on that list and it’s not shocking to see names like Hossler, Kisner, and McNealy. They all have a ton of upside with that club and have played well at one point or another here in the past. 

Betting Facts and Stats for the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic

Below are the previous odds (week of) of the past five Rocket Mortgage Classic winners. A couple of notes about these odds below:

• Rickie Fowler was coming into this event with a lot of form last season and went close to a win in his previous couple of starts. 
• The same goes for Bryson DeChambeau back in 2020. 
• Nate Lashley and Cameron Davis were pure longshots, although Davis had shown some form earlier in the season, back in 2021. 
• Tony Finau ripped off two wins, back-to-back in 2022, with his first win coming in Detroit. His success at both venues does point to a likely loose correlation at the very least.

Below are the previous 5 winners of the Rocket Mortgage Classic and their pre-event odds from the beginning of the week of the event. (Odds courtesy of SportsOddsHistory.)

Early Bet for 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic

Nicolai Hojgaard Outright (+5500; FanDuel)

• Top 10 (+550; DraftKings)

Hojgaard reminds me a lot of 2021 winner Cameron Davis, a player who had shown promise throughout that season but arrived in Detroit that year off a missed cut and a few more uninspiring results. Since finishing 2nd at the Farmers back in January 2024 has been a similar struggle for Hojgaard, who has yet to record another top 10 on the year.

Still, the Dane is an immense talent who caught fire last fall on the European Tour to post four top-five finishes in seven starts, which culminated with a win at the elite field DP WORLD TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP. He also posted a T16 at the Masters this season, a career-best major championship finish on his first trip around Augusta National.

Relatively speaking, this is the kind of event where you want to take a shot or two with some underperforming talent lurking further back in the odds and Hojgaard seems like he’s a solid fit for the course. Like past top finishers Taylor Pendrith and Matthew Wolff, he’s big off the tee and finished T21 here last season, gaining strokes everywhere but on the greens. He also grabbed a T14 last season at Sedgefield CC, another Donald Ross-designed venue.

While he’s outside the top 10, Hojgaard is still a strong 22nd in the model and also has odds above +5000. He comes in showing some form as well, having now gained over 2.0 strokes on approach in each of his last two starts. Coming now to an easier venue, against a weaker field, his odds (compared to the rest of the field) make this a good time to chase his upside.