Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic
Rocket Mortgage Classic Fantasy Preview
Winning golf tournaments is hard.
But the pressure ramps up yet further when you are fighting for your life as a professional golfer, and where immediate success – just to keep your tour card and playing privileges – is absolutely necessary.
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Scott Piercy, with four missed cuts in his last starts and just one win in seven years on the PGA TOUR, is (or, at least, was) in the doldrums. Faced with slipping out of the top 300 in the world and potentially losing his card as part of the FedEx Cup race, it’s gotten to that ‘all or nothing’ time for the two-decades long pro.
He must have been as surprised as anybody to be leading the 3M Open hallway through Sunday’s final round, and the realization of what he was about to achieve derailed Piercy to some tune – three bogeys and a triple on the back nine confirmation of how much golf is played by the space between the ears as it is with the hands and arms.
The only crumb of comfort for Piercy is that finishing T4 helps his chances of retaining his card, and it may have warmed his cockles to know that it was another notoriously dodgy closer – Tony Finau – who would be the chief beneficiary.
Big Tone clinched his third PGA TOUR title at TPC Twin Cities, showing plenty of clutch-putting ability on his own back nine to suggest that he may be growing in confidence when in contention. Three consecutive birdies through 14-16 was real ‘cometh-the-hour’ stuff.
One down, two to go. This week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic will be followed by the Wyndham Championship – the remaining two regular season events prior to the FedEx Cup playoffs. The top 125 will lock up their playing privileges for next season, and advance to the St Jude Championship.
Piercy, now up to 112th, will be giving it his all, no doubt….
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Last Week’s Fantasy Results
Last week’s biggest horse was Emiliano Grillo on our Sleeper Report who finished T2. Although we cooled off a bit this week, we’re still rolling on picking two winners over the last few weeks.
No Finau-fresh for us last week unfortunately but lets try to get back into the winners circle this week in Detroit!
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Rocket Mortgage Classic Field
Finau will have a chance to show off his new-found closing prowess as he seeks to go back-to-back at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.
He will be joined in Detroit by a myriad of straight-shooting young studs like Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa and British Open runner-up Cameron Young, while Will Zalatoris will – as ever – be the source of much interest.
Cameron Davis is the returning defending champion, and in the three years that Detroit GC has hosted this event few can boast the course form of Kevin Kisner.
The 20-year-old phenom Joo-Hyung Kim gets another invite to a PGA TOUR event, and he will tee it up alongside a bunch of guys old enough to be his father, like Adam Scott, Matt Kuchar and Stewart Cink.
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This Week’s Course Preview
With an average winning score of 22 and a common cutline of -4, you get a feel for Detroit GC straight off the bat.
This is one of those courses designed more than a century ago that simply has not been able to proof itself against the modern player, and while Donald Ross’ legacy as a phenomenal architect remains, back in 1919 he would have had no idea what the future golfer was capable of.
The Par 5s are there for the taking, and with only one large water hazard on the real estate and around 85 bunkers, players are encouraged to have a heave at two of these holes in particular – 550 yards is not enough to convince many to lay up these days.
Four of the Par 4s weigh in at under 400 yards too, and while there are other protections – some of the tree-lined fairways require an element of shot shaping to ensure the right angle in to the green – this is a birdie-fest layout in every definition of the term.
The warm temperatures will help to quicken the Bentgrass/Poa greens – 12 on the stimpmeter is par for the course here, but for the most part both fairway and green are receptive, and so it’s with the flat stick where the main edge will be found this week.
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Weather Forecast for Detroit, MI
Detroit GC was quite wet and cool for last year’s edition of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, but it looks unlikely that the 2022 event will follow suit.
Warm temperatures – we’re talking around 84˚F for the most part – will be powered by sunny spells, so it will feel pleasant and the course should play nice and fast.
The wind could reach between 10-13 mph, but it’s worth remembering that there are some thick tree-lines at Detroit GC, and so you wonder how much of the breeze will truly register.
Although some spots of rain are potentially in the offing on Wednesday, for the tournament itself the players should expect a nice dry week – according to the early forecast, at least.
DETROIT WEATHER
Last Year’s Results from the Rocket Mortgage Classic
Talk about winning your maiden PGA TOUR title in style.
Cameron Davis splashed a 50ft eagle out of the sand on the seventeenth hole on Sunday and followed it up with a birdie at the last to hammer his way up the leaderboard and seal his place in a play-off against Joaquin Niemann and Troy Merritt.
Niemann arguably could and perhaps should have won it in regular time, but a couple of missed putts condemned the Chilean to the play-off – his disappointment was near palpable as he exited the shootout with a bogey on the first extra hole.
Davis and Merritt duked it out over four more play-off holes, but in the end the relentless pressure applied by the Australian told when Merritt missed on the fifth and Davis was left to celebrate his first PGA TOUR victory.
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Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the Rocket Mortgage Classic this Week
We’re heading towards the end of the 2021-22 season now, and before we get to the smaller field events of the FedEx Cup, it’s well worth building our bankroll in advance – hopefully the Rocket Mortgage Classic will prove successful in that regard.
- PGA $1M Pitch & Putt: Even the sharps and the whales will find putting a strong line-up together tough this week, with a very top-heavy look to proceedings. So we can get stuck into this $20 contest, which yields a handsome $250k to the winner.
- PGA $40k Albatross: It will take a hardy soul to tackle a single entry contest this week, but this $12 entry game serves up a top prize of $4,000 – and, ironically, there’s fewer than 4,000 teams to defeat.
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This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the Rocket Mortgage Classic
There can’t be many golf courses in the world that could host an event in which Bryson DeChambeau – one of the longest hitters in the professional game – could share a top-five finish with Ryan Armour, one of the shortest.
But that’s what happed at Detroit GC in 2020, and that’s indicative of a layout where what you do off the tee is of less consequence than the average week on the PGA TOUR.
The secret sauce is in having an unbelievable week with irons and wedges – leaving a catalogue of close-range putts, or instead simply having one of those tournaments where you drain every putt you look at it.
These Bentgrass/Poa greens are tremendously pure, and so you could see how those with the hot hand could fire in birdie after birdie, and so really we’re looking for those guys who have plenty of class in their ball-striking but who save their best putting performances for Poa surfaces.
We’re clutching at straws when it comes to correlating courses, but maybe Silverado – home of the Fortinet Championship – holds some worth. It has very similar average approach distances to Detroit GC, features some tighter holes and is laid with Poa Anna greens.
Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Rocket Mortgage Classic
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Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2021-2022)
Tourneys Played '21 -'22
Season Earnings YTD
Total Top 3s
Total Top 10s
Total Top 25s
Total Winners Picked
Total Runners-Up Picked
Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)
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