The Daily Spin – DraftKings Daily Fantasy Golf Preview – Rocket Mortgage Classic
When I first saw the ‘Rocket Mortgage Classic’ on the schedule last year and saw that it would be held in Detroit, my first instinct was that it was going to present me with the longest, inescapable Tuesday night of the 2019 season. So far, that feels appropriate as I agonize over my player pool and cash game roster for the week. We have reached the point of the season that I often refer to as ‘the doldrums’ of the tour calendar. It represents the time in between the US Open which takes place in June each, and The Open Championship which is always held near the end of July.
This is always a tricky part of the schedule with how the events are spaced out. Next week kicks off the portion of the European Tour schedule that I always enjoy each year as we get a couple of Rolex Series events leading into The Open (Irish Open & Scottish Open). We will see many of the top players head over to Europe early to play in one or both of those events to prepare for the links style courses that populate the rotation of courses for The Open each year. Other players, like Tiger Woods, will simply take a four week break between tournaments to rest up and prepare for what is now the final major of the season.
This leaves us withe a handful of filler events on the calendar where we look over the field each week and see a lot of unappealing names working their way up in salary as the lack of depth in these tournaments pushes the odds down on many nondescript players. We still have a few elite names up top, as we do in any event which is helpful, but we also run into the problem of trying to gauge their motivation for these types of events. Do we get the DJ who destroyed the field at the St Jude last year or the Brooks Koepka who spent last weekend sleep walking through River Highlands on his way to a 57th place finish (which we avoided completely)?
Jeff and I had an interesting discussion about this on the podcast as it seems like there has been a real shift in the attitude of the elite players over the last few years in particular. Back when Tiger was storming the field each and every week and was in contention at nearly every tournament, the game boomed in its growth. If you look at the prize money when he was starting out versus where it is today and then factor in the sponsorship money being thrown around, and you start to see that these filler events are not a lot different than Week 17 for an NFL playoff contender. Players are still passively interested and if they happen to get off to a fast start, they may push harder to close it out, but if they start slow, you can un-star their name on the PGA Tour app without hesitation. They are not going to be making a comeback for the week.
This makes strategy very tricky during these weeks between majors. Some of the top guys are going to show up and look sharp, while others are going to look disinterested. This is where ‘feel’ comes into play when building your lineups. Last week was the perfect case where it worked out right for us. I was puzzled as to why Brooks would show up for the Travelers a week after pouring so much of himself into attempting to defend his US Open title. It was a valiant effort, but with so much on the line that final round and to come up just short had to be absolutely draining both physically and emotionally. When you combine that with the fact that Brooks has publicly talked about stepping up his game specifically for majors, it made a lot of sense to stay away from him last week.
On the other hand, Chez Reavie finished 3rd at Pebble Beach and some felt like he would face the same letdown as Brooks. I did not see that being the case for Chez based on the circumstances. He did finish 3rd, but he was never really a part of the conversation on Sunday. In fact, more than once I remarked that it would be great to see a few of his shots since he was still very fantasy relevant during the final round. However, 3rd place fell into his lap and was as high as he possibly could have expected to finish at any point that day. In fact, it took a Justin Rose collapse just to move up that high on the board. It was all a bonus at the end of a career week for Chez so he left the event feeling positive and upbeat about his play rather than being as mentally spent as Brooks. Obviously, we were able to capitalize on this in a big way last week as he rolled to his first win in nearly eleven years which gave me an easy win in cash games and made for a profitable GPP week as well.
The course this week is the real mystery that needs to be solved. On the surface, it does not seem like it should be a very challenging course, but at the same time, without any history to go off of, we do not know exactly how tough it will play. The organizers for the event will want the course to play tough, but they also do not want it to be too tough in a way that would deter the best players from returning in the years ahead. Detroit Golf Club is a Par 72 and will play at around 7,350 yards this week. It is a Donald Ross design, but I am not sure that is going to be a significant factor to consider based upon Sedgefield (easy) and East Lake (more of a challenge). There are four Par 5 holes this week and outside of one behemoth which is over 630 yards, the others should be reachable in two shots for most of the field and I expect a lot of scoring this week on these holes which means a shift towards focusing more on players Off the Tee game this week as opposed to approach play. The rough is where it will be interesting this week in that I have heard it will be long and potentially thick, but since we have not seen how it plays for a tournament, it is tough to say whether or not it will be all that punitive. If it is easy to hit out of, expect a lot of driver off the tee this week with short irons and wedges on the approach. If for some reason, it is more of a struggle to work from, you could see more 3 wood like the last couple of weeks. The greens are smaller and are mostly poa with a small amount of bentgrass with a good amount of undulation, but my thought is that they are not going to play overly difficult. This is an area where players are most sensitive to setup so it seems unlikely that course officials would want to make their name from having overly slick greens that frustrate too many players. My thought is that players are going to be able to get away with more this week than the last two weeks, also courses with smaller, poa greens. With the additional Par 5 scoring opportunities, I expect this to be more of a birdie-fest with scores approaching the -20 range. When looking for players this week, be sure to bump up SGOTT, Par 5 Scoring and BoB%.
A quick look at the weather this week does not show much as far as presenting many problems for the field this week. The forecast for Thursday is for plenty of sun, no chance of rain and winds very light in the morning (2-5 mph without much if any gust) and slightly picking up in the afternoon (7-9 mph). Friday, it is expected to be a little windier, with winds being lower in the morning (5 mph with gusts up to 13 mph) and picking up in the afternoon (9 mph with potential gusts as high as 17 mph). I do not currently believe that there will be a massive advantage in weighting one wave over the other. If I had to pick, I would say that the PM/AM wave looks slightly better overall, but I do not think you need to go overboard with stacking too many teams towards one side or the other. I will likely have 10% of my teams as PM/AM and 5% AM/PM as of this writing. Make sure you get your own final weather check tonight for locking in your final lineups just in case anything pops up at the last minute that could swing a few strokes one way or the other.
Key Stats
Strokes Gained Tee to Green: 30%
Strokes Gained Putting: 20%
Birdie or Better Percentage: 20%
Proximity: 10%
Scrambling: 10%
Strokes Gained Off the Tee: 5%
Par 5 Scoring: 5%
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