DraftKings PGA DFS Picks: Rocket Classic Cash and GPP Strategy

This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.

ROCKET CLASSIC

Purse: $9.6M
Winner's Share: $1.728M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the Winner
Location: Detroit
Course: Detroit Golf Club (North course)
Yardage: 7,370
Par: 72
2024 Champion: Cameron Davis

Tournament Preview

Since the PGA Tour was last in Detroit a year ago, the tournament has changed its name. It's no longer the Rocket Mortgage Classic. It is now simply the Rocket Classic. Because it's just too dang hard to get a mortgage these days.

No, that's the true.

The real reason is that the company underwent something called a "refreshed branding identity" earlier this year.

Frankly, we like our reason better.

Regardless, as always, the headliner is the company's top pitchman, Rickie Fowler, who fortuitously won the 2023 tournament for his most recent victory.

Following a stretch of five majors or Signature Events in a seven-week span, there will be only a smattering of big names here this week. Collin Morikawa was the lone top-10 player at the time the field was announced. But he has since been joined by Keegan Bradley, who won last week's Travelers Championship. Others of note include Patrick Cantlay, Hideki Matsuyama, Ben Griffin, Min Woo Lee, Cameron Young, Max Homa and the defending champion and lone two-time winner of the event, Cam Davis. (Yes, we thought long and hard before including Homa as an "of note.")

U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun had committed to the tournament but by the time the field was finalized on Friday, he had withdrawn.

It's always about this time of year that college players make their pro debuts. We've already seen Luke Clanton and Gordon Sargent do so in the past few weeks, and they are in this field. This week, Dominic Clemons, who just finished up at Alabama and was the 2024 Scottish Amateur winner, will be making his pro debut. Michael La Sasso, who just won the NCAA Division I men's individual championship as a junior at Mississippi, also got in on a sponsor's invite.

The last note about the field: Michigan native and former LIV player James Piot received a sponsor's invite. He played two years with the breakaway circuit before being relegated late in 2023. Since that was more than a year ago, he has served a de facto one-year suspension and is now elgible to return to the PGA Tour.

This will be the seventh edition of the Rocket Classic. The company has already committed to stick around through at least 2027.

Four of the first six editions at Detroit Golf Club were big-time birdie-fests, with Nate Lashley winning at 25-under in 2019, Bryson DeChambeau at 23-under in 2020, Finau at 26-under two years ago and Fowler at 24-under last year. Interestingly, the two times that Davis won, in 2021 and last year, the winning score was 18-under, not quite a birdie-fest in our unofficial determination.

Detroit Golf Club has been around since 1899. Its two 18-hole courses were completed in 1916, both built by famed architect Donald Ross. The North, the longer of the two tracks, is used for the tournament, save for one hole from the South, sort of. No. 3 this week will begin at what normally is the North No. 1 tee box and end at the South No. 1 green. The club's website describes the North this way: "It features narrow, tree-lined fairways, which make club selection an important part of the round. The undulating greens and treacherous bunkering ensures you bring your a-game all the way up to the pin." Gosh, they actually make it sound hard.

Yes, there are a lot of trees and there are some holes with strategically placed fairway bunkers, but the fairways are not narrow at all. The course is also very flat, the flattest on Tour all season. Missing the fairway has not proven to be an issue, even with four-inch rough greeting the golfers once again this year.

There are many bunkers guarding the greens (87 total on the course) and severe undulations on the smallish bengtrass/poa putting surfaces (averaging 5,150 square feet) moving back to front with runoffs, a Ross trademark.

But none of it has affected scores all that much, and golfers hit the greens in regulation around 80% of the time. There's water on just one hole, the par-5, 555-yard 14th. That's one of three gettable par-5s of under 580; there are also four par-4s under 400 -- the golfers will be throwing darts on those holes -- and two par-3s under 170. On the other hand, there's a 233-yard par-3 (the 11th) and a 635-yard par-5 (the 4th).

Six holes played over par last year. The hardest by far was the 461-yard 6th, with 124 bogeys, which was almost 12 percent for the entire tournament.

The golf course traditionally plays among the 10 easiest on Tour, and often the top 5 if you want to exclude some of the fall-season cupcakes. The opportunity for disaster is lower here than most courses, so we'll be targeting aggressive golfers with great birdie numbers.

As for the weather, we're looking at rain maybe all four days -- more if you include earlier in the week -- with more of it on Thursday and Friday. It's too soon to tell whether any tee times will have an edge, so it's best to wait as long as possible before the lock. Otherwise, high temperatures will be close to 90 the final three days, with moderate wind.

Key Stats to Winning at Detroit Golf Club

The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.

• Strokes Gained: Approach/Approach from 125-150 years/SG: Tee-to-Green
• Strokes Gained: Putting
• Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green
• Par-5 Scoring 550-600 yards
• Birdie or Better Percentage

Past Champions

2024 - Cam Davis
2023 - Rickie Fowler
2022 - Tony Finau
2021 - Cam Davis
2020 - Bryson DeChambeau
2019 - Nate Lashley

Champion's Profile

There isn't much standing in the way of golfers going low -- other than perhaps the weather.

Last year, Davis won the tournament for the second time with a balanced game. He ranked 28th in SG: Off-the-Tee, 12th in Approach, ninth in Around the Green and 19th in Putting.

There were four runners-up in Akshay Bhatia, Lee, Aaron Rai and Davis Thompson. Bhatia ranked second in SG: Approach and Rai was third, but other two were further back. Lee ranked second in driving distance, but none of the others, including Davis, was especially long.

Really, there was no single way that they all landed on the first page of the leaderboard.

But in prior years, when scores were lower than Davis' 18-under, approach play and putting dominated.

Going back to the 2020 tournament, here's this little nugget from the PGA Tour's Media Guide: "DeChambeau became the first winner in the ShotLink era (since 2003) to lead the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Putting. He also led the field in Driving Distance (350.6 yards) and Par-4 Scoring Average (3.68)." That seems like a good way to win -- do something no one has ever done before. Seriously, DeChambeau blasted it off the tee, yet ranked only 58th in fairways hit, but it didn't matter. His worst score all week was 67.

In the inaugural Rocket Mortgage, Lashley ran away by six strokes. He had two rounds of 63, so he tied the course record TWICE.

The over/under on the winning score this year per golfodds.com is 265.5, which is 22.5 under par.

DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS

Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap

$9,000-$9,900

Ben Griffin - $9,800 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +2200) 
There are three guys $10,000 and up, though none of them is overly appealing. Morikawa and Cantlay have both been runner-up here, but neither has been challenging for titles in 2025. Bradley is the third, and he's never broken the top-10 in four prior visits. So we start with maybe the hottest player on Tour not named Scottie Scheffler. Griffin lands at No. 1 in our model. He's ranked fourth in this field in birdie or better over his past 24 rounds, a significant improvement over his season-long body of work.

Harry Hall - $9,500 (+3000) 
Hall has quietly strung together five straight top-25s. One of them was a top-10 last week at the Travelers and another came in the PGA Championship. He's been such a good putter and a birdie machine -- he's ranked fifth on Tour this season in birdie or better. But he leads the Tour in total birdies with 299.

Cameron Young - $9,300 (+2800) 
Young is a very aggressive player who pounds the ball off the tee. Combine that with being ranked in the top-10 on Tour in SG: Putting, and he's just the type of player we like this week. Young has turned around his season the past couple of months -- he has three top-10s in his past six starts. He tied for sixth here last year and shared runner-up in 2022.

$8,000-$8,900

Rickie Fowler - $8,700 (+4000) 
Fowler catches a lot of flack for being an almost automatic sponsor's invite into Signature Events. But he's done a good job backing up his selections. He tied for 16th at the Truist and for seventh at the Memorial. In between, he tied for 16th at the Charles Schwab. He managed only a tie for 36th last week at the Travelers -- even that beat half the field -- but he had a 64-67 weekend. Fowler won here two years ago and the crowd will again be on his side.

Min Woo Lee - $8,500 (+4500) 
Lee's whole season has been propped up by one good week: his win at the Houston Open. It's his only top-10 all year and he hasn't done better than tying for 49th in his seven ensuing starts. Gee, where can we sign up for someone playing so terribly? This clearly is a reach, but it's a reach with substantial upside. Not only did Lee share runner-up last year, but he's just the type of aggressive golfer who can catch fire at this course.

Akshay Bhatia - $8,200 (+4500) 
If Bhatia would like to make the Ryder Cup team, this would be a good week to begin a two-month push. Right now, he sits in 23rd place. But a win could move him to about 15th. Not likely he'll make the team, but doable. Bhatia has not seen good results since tying for third at THE PLAYERS, though his stats would indicate otherwise. He's ranked top-25 on Tour in SG: Approach, SG: Putting and birdie or better. He's a pretty short hitter, but that shouldn't hurt him this week -- just like last year, when he shared runner-up.

$7,000-$7,900

Thorbjorn Olesen - $7,900 (+5500)
Olesen has had a curious season. He is ranked 37th on Tour in both SG: Approach and Tee-to-Green, 20th in SG: Putting and -- get this -- 16th in SG: Total. Yet he has only two top-25s in 12 starts. He clearly is playing better than he's scoring. A weak field is a great place to flip the script. Olesen lands at No. 11 in our stats-based model.

Taylor Moore - $7,600 (+5500)
Moore has had only one good result in months -- a top-20 at the PGA Championship. But he has been quite successful at this tournament over the years. He tied for 10th last year, for fourth the year before and was solo sixth in 2022. Moore has had a few issues with his game this year, among them driving accuracy, so he should enjoy a return to these wide fairways.

Emiliano Grillo - $7,400 (+6500)
Grillo sits outside the top 100 of the FedExCup Standings. But his recent play has been excellent. He's made nine of his past 10 cuts, with five top-25s, including four in a row, the last of which was at the U.S. Open. he's ranked top-50 on Tour in both SG: Approach and Putting.

Ryo Hisatsune - $7,200 (+8000)
The 22-year-old Hisatsune has made eight of his past nine cuts (non-Zurich), including three top-10s. He tied for 37th at the PGA. His season-long numbers aren't the best gauge because he's played far better lately, but they are not even half bad. Hisatsune is ranked top-50 on Tour in SG: Tee-to-Green, greens in regulation and SG: Total. He tied for 31st in his Detroit debut a year ago.

$6,000-$6,900

Henrik Norlander - $6,900 (+15000)
The $6,000 range is not a gold mine this week, no hidden gems lurking. Norlander offers at least a little hope. He's made the cut in four of his five starts in this tournament, though the miss was last year. He's made five of his past six cuts on Tour overall. He's ranked fifth on Tour in SG: Approach and a better-than-average 58th in Tee-to-Green. And he's also better than the Tour average in putting. Have we convinced you yet? No? Didn't think so.

Danny Walker - $6,700 (+20000)
Walker is among the more inaccurate drivers on Tour. So we're hoping the wide fairways lessen his troubles. The rest of his stats are decent enough. He's ranked top-60 on Tour in SG: Approach, Around-the-Green, Tee-to-Green and even SG: Total. He's eighth on Tour in birdie or better. Walker, you may recall, came out of nowhere to tie for sixth at THE PLAYERS. He's done little since, though he did have a top-25 at the Byron Nelson.

Nate Lashley - $6,500 (+30000)
After a brutal start to this season, the inaugural Rocket Classic champion at least has figured out how to make it to the weekend. Lashley has made six of his past seven cuts. There's been only one top-25 in that stretch, so a high finish is likely not in the offing, though he did tie for 25th here last year.
 
Want to lock in these selections? See how they stack up alongside other golfers in RotoWire's PGA DFS Lineup Optimizer.