Usually, the tournament that denotes the true doldrums of summer, I’m pretty pumped for Detroit this year.

1. We’ve got boots on the ground with our own Ron Klos spending all week out here. If you’re not, you should be following him if nothing else but for the nuggets he’s tweeting out from Motown.

2. The field is slightly better than usual, with some top golfers opting to play here this year. I’m still playing longshots, but still, it’s nice to see a few big names in the field.

3. Not only is there a renovation happening after we award the trophy on Sunday, but they’ve said they will try to make the course as firm and fast as they can this time around (we’ll see). If this could become a bit more challenging and find winners in the -12 to -14 range instead, I think we’d be cooking with gas.

• Event: Rocket Classic (formerly Rocket Mortgage Classic)

• Dates: June 26-29, 2025

• Location: Detroit Golf Club, Detroit, Michigan

• Purse: $9.6M (winner: $1.728M)

• FedExCup Points: 500 to the winner

• Format: 72-hole stroke play with a 36-hole cut

• Field Size: 156 players

• Defending Champion: Cam Davis (-18)

• Past Winners:

  • 2023: Rickie Fowler (-24, playoff)

  • 2022: Tony Finau (-26)

  • 2021: Cam Davis (-18)

  • 2020: Bryson DeChambeau (-23)

  • 2019: Nate Lashley (-25)

As always, a peek into the course to get you up to speed, via Ron’s course preview article:

Detroit County Club

The North Course at Detroit Golf Club is a par 72 layout that measures 7,370 yards. It features the standard breakdown of four par-3s, 10 par-4s, and four par-5s. Let’s cut right to the chase here. It is one of the easiest courses on the PGA Tour rotation. Over the last five years, it has played as the 11th easiest course at an average of -1.71 per round. Players will need to shoot low rounds each day to be in contention. Winning scores have ranged between -18 to -26.

It is a traditional parkland venue with tree-lined fairways and flat topography. When the course entered the Tour rotation in 2019, its standard deviation of terrain change stood at 2.18 feet, edging TPC Louisiana (2.23) as the flattest course on Tour. Aside from a handful of holes, few truly stand out due to the limited variation from tee to green throughout the round. Most of the layout runs either north to south or south to north, with only a few doglegs providing directional change.

Lacking length and any real penal areas off the tee or on approaching the greens, expect birdies to come in bunches. Such an easy-scoring environment opens the field to more contenders. Because the course does little to punish poor shots, there’s minimal separation between strong and below-average tee-to-green performances. As a result, the tournament essentially becomes a wedge-fest followed by a putting contest. Recent rainfall and typically soft conditions from pop-up summer storms lead to receptive greens and only add to the scoring potential.

Sam Moynihan, Director of Agronomy at Detroit Golf Club, and his team are focused on drying out the course early this week after it was hit by rain over the past few days. Scorching temperatures in the mid-90s on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday will aid the drying process. He believes they may even need to add some water by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. The goal is to get the course playing firm and fast.

Said Moynihan, “Normally, I need to have 18 greens for the membership to play for the rest of the season. Knowing that we have this construction project, we can find that edge and maybe go a little further, knowing that if they get really banged up, I don’t need them in July. I don’t need them in August. So it allows you to push the needle a little bit further than you typically would.”

“We’re going to try to push this golf course as far as we can with what the weather gives us. Now, if it rains, all that goes out the window. But we’re definitely trying to get these greens as dry and firm as we possible can before we renovate them in two weeks.”

Unlike a hazard-laden course such as TPC Twin Cities, there are no “blow-up” holes here where players are threatened with double-bogey or worse. There is only one hole with any threat of water danger. In fact, there are only two holes on the course with a bogey or worse rate above 20%. The course has the second-fewest number of penalty strokes on Tour.

The bluegrass rough at Detroit Golf Club is listed at four inches but is very patchy in many spots due to the multitude of trees and rarely limits players from reaching the green in regulation. Even with many of the greens being diminished in nature from Ross’s original design, the course’s main defense is the sloping back-to-front green complexes. Greens are a mix of Poa annua and bentgrass and run around 12 on the stimpmeter. Greens are also smaller than average at only 5,150 square feet.

Key Stats

Maybe a bit of a straightforward week, with the course giving up what it gives up. If you can bomb it without being too wild off the tee, you’re going to have plenty of wedges and lots of opportunities to reach the par 5s in two.

• SG: Approach is still going to be tops here, especially if you want to look at some splits from 100-150 yards out, with a high percentage of 2nd shots coming from this range (43.9%!)

• Par 5 scoring or Par 5 birdie or better rate: As we’ve said, three of the four par 5s are reachable, and if you take advantage, you’ll be near the top of the leaderboard.

• Bent/Poa Putting: Hard to predict who will putt well, but maybe give guys who have a good track record a bit of a bump since the winners here have traditionally gained more strokes putting on the field than an average tour event.

• Driving Distance/Good Drives Gained: Bombers can tear this place apart, but not if they are missing big.

Betting

With a big field and no “dominant” golfers in it, I do like to lower the stake sizing and spread it out a bit on bigger prices.

This card is basically a list of “my guys” who fit the bill here, plus Max Homa. I guess I saw flashes of decent golf at the PGA, and he’s 130 to 1!

Outrights:

Harry Hall +4000
Luke Clanton +4000
Akshay Bhatia +4000
Stephan Jaeger +6000
Michael Kim +8000
Rico Hoey +10000
Max Homa +13080
Aldrich Potgieter +15078

Noonan took a similar approach:

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Weather

It appears that Detroit, despite its best efforts to be “firm and fast”, is going to get enough rain to make that difficult. Temps nearly the 90s for most of the week with some winds.

Thursday and Friday look fairly similar, but the afternoon for round 2 is looking a bit gustier. It’s hard to call a wave advantage with some much uncertainty around the rain and possible delays wrecking the best laid plans, but for now, PM/AM seems like the way to be.

Speaking of bad weather, It’s never too early to get started on looking into the Open Championship.

News and Notes

• I would be fine if he just stayed out of any ambulances this weekend.

• I had no idea this was a thing. Much cooler than the “313” Challenge.

• Long-time big fan of animal on the course videos checking in.

As always, bet responsibly, have fun, and stay cool.

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