After another week of low-scoring that saw Dustin Johnson earn a win in Connecticut, the PGA Tour heads to Detroit Golf Club for this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic.
While this week’s field isn’t as strong as the previous three fields since the PGA Tour’s return to action, the like of Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau, and Webb Simpson will be teeing it up this week.
Nate Lashley won last year’s event at 25-under.
Last week’s picks: Pick to Win, Bryson DeChambeau (T-6); Pick to Contend, Sergio Garcia (T-32); Pick to Fade, Patrick Cantlay (T-11).
Detroit Golf Club will be on the longer side compared to the three previous stops on Tour playing at just over 7,330 yards. While the yardage may appear daunting, the scores at last year’s event were extremely low as the cut line was 5-under par, the lowest on Tour since 2016.
The Par 72 track boasts bentgrass greens that are on the smaller side averaging 5,150 square feet. The biggest change we could see at this year’s tournament compared to last year is more penal rough as it will reportedly be over four-inches tall.
It’s another week to zero in on ball strikers and above-average putters when it comes to picks.
Patrick Reed
Despite stumbling to a missed cut at the RBC Heritage two weeks ago, Reed has looked solid since the restart picking up a T-7 finish at the Charles Schwab Challenge and finished T-24 last week in Connecticut.
While Reed enters the week already ranked fourth on Tour in strokes gained: putting, it’s his strokes gained: off the tee from last week that should give bettors the green light to pick Reed after finishing 17th in the field. He ranks 91st in that category for the year. Add some positive signs off the tee to a hot putter and a notoriously solid ball-striker and Reed is tough not to circle this week.
Reed finished T-5 here a year ago.
Odds: 14-1
Webb Simpson
There’s certainly an argument to be made that Simpson has been the most solid player since the PGA Tour’s restart thanks to an impressive win at the RBC Heritage. Hell, if DJ didn’t win last week you may even argue he’s the best American golfer walking the planet right now.
Simpson is simply a scoring machine as he leads the Tour in Par 4 scoring, adjusted scoring and putting: birdies or better. He’s also 29th on Tour in driving accuracy which is never a bad thing, especially for someone that doesn’t have great length off the tee.
He did not play in this event last year.
Odds: 11-1
Rickie Fowler
At this point, it’s not even a bold choice to pick Fowler as a player to fade given his recent form, but he’s still a big-time name that will garner plenty of interest from people.
After missing back-to-back cuts, Fowler elected to take last week off. Nothing stands out about his game at the moment, but it’s Fowler’s iron play that’s really struggled this season as he sits 120th on Tour in greens in regulation percentage which in turn has diminished his birdie average to just 3.75 per round, good enough for 110th on Tour.
Until Fowler shows some life he’s a player to stay away from, even if you see ‘good odds’ around his name.
Odds: 28-1
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Mark is an associate editor at BroBible. Follow him on Twitter @ItIsMarkHarris for the occasional good tweet. Feel free to contact him at Mark@BroBible.com.
