We’re rounding third and heading home on the 2022 PGA Tour season. The three-week FedEx Cup Playoff begins after next week’s Wyndham Championship, so golfers looking to improve their seeding or work their way inside the top 125 on the points list are running out of time. For those golfers looking to move up the rankings this week, birdies will be required in bunches to make a dent at this week’s Rocket Mortgage in Detroit.
Per Ron‘s course preview, the North Course at Detroit Golf Club is one of the easiest courses on the PGA Tour rotation. It’s a traditional parkland venue with tree-lined fairways and flat topography. The Par-72 layout comes in at 7,370 yards, and without the penal areas off the tee and on approach like last week in Minnesota, scoring opportunities will be plentiful. Since the course does not penalize poor shots, there is little separation between great and below-average tee-to-green play. It’s not an accident that Jon Rahm isn’t in the field this week. This is not his preferred course setup. We’ve seen a wide array of golf styles compete at this event, so there’s not a perfect golfer archetype to hone in on this week. I’m leaning heaviest on strong wedge players (150 yards and in) with above-average Poa-putting baseline skills. Distance is always a plus but not a prerequisite this week.
My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting this week. There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game, so I’ll share my opinion on the best way to bet on each golfer in my player pool at this week’s event. When pricing out finishing position bets, I’ll often lean towards BetMGM even if there’s a better number elsewhere because of MGM’s advantageous dead-heat rules. Know the rules of the books that you’re betting on!
Please take advantage of the Discord feature and community. It’s the best way to get up-to-the-minute lines and advice, and if you need help getting started, please reach out. That’s where my full card will be posted, along with any live in-tournament bets. Betting markets are fluid, but I’ll note the best number available at the time of this writing.
*Betting lines accurate at the time of publication.
f684b2f3d4218ee06dad551b3bb2074bNoonan’s Rocket Mortgage Targets
Max Homa
A familiar face around these parts, I’m going back to the well on Max Homa this week. I believe he’s the Tour’s most improved player this year, and the data backs it up. Having the best year of his career in each of the strokes-gained metrics, Homa’s also gaining more driving distance and accuracy on the field than ever before. The results have followed. He’s finished inside the top 20 in half of his starts this season, and he’s been successful on various course setups and styles.
Over the past 36 rounds, Homa ranks fourth in the field in both strokes-gained approach (SG: APP) and tee-to-green (SG: T2G), and he’s been dialed in inside 150 yards all summer long. Over the same time frame, I have him second in this field in putting inside of 10 feet, which matters more this week than most. He’s more than 10 points shorter than BetMGM‘s 25/1 at some books, so this feels like a gift.
Mark Hubbard
Strong showings at alt-field events can often go under the radar. Now, the case can easily be made that it means less, considering the top-tier golfers are somewhere else that week, but good form is good form, and it shouldn’t be scoffed at. That brings us to Mr. Hubbard, who followed up a solo third-place finish at the Barbasol with a solo fourth-place finish the following week at the Barracuda. He hasn’t missed a cut since the first week of May, and he’s an ideal fit for what I’m targeting this week. His baseline putting numbers are strong, gaining on the field in each event since May’s missed cut, and he ranks fourth in this field in proximity to the hole from 125-150 yards over his past 36 rounds. Since he’s a bit short off the tee compared to the rest of the field, he’s more likely to fall into this proximity tier than the sub-125-yard range, which works in his favor.
Russell Henley
It’s taken me 51 weeks to get over Russell Henley’s fourth round at the 2021 Wyndham Championship, but I’m ready to go back to the well because he fits the profile I’m looking for this week. Henley will give himself a ton of birdie looks due to his exceptional wedge play and accuracy off the tee. Admittedly, his long-term putting stats are better than some of his recent results, but he’s fared well on Poa greens over the past several years.
- Win: 55/1 DraftKings
- Top 30: +125 FanDuel
Chris Gotterup
We’ve seen young bombers from the Big 12 come to Detroit and have success before, and Chris Gotterup has the game to bomb and gauge this place as Matthew Wolff did back in 2020. His prodigious drives should leave him with a lot of short approaches this week, and Gotterup ranks fourth in this field in proximity to the hole from 75-100 yards out. He’s played well over the past few starts but hasn’t been able to piece together four solid rounds yet, which is why we’re getting him at 100/1 despite the pedigree and course fit.
- Win: 100/1 DraftKings
- Top 40: +115 FanDuel
FanDuel Finishing Position Parlay
Keegan Bradley and Kevin Kisner – T40 (+198)
This is a relatively new entry to the space, thanks to our friends at FanDuel. Unlike most other books I’m familiar with, FanDuel allows you to parlay finishing position bets. Now, the very premise of the bet is flawed because the expected value is negative since players are competing for the same finishing positions. If the bet is two T40s like this one, when one leg of your parlay finishes above the threshold, there’s now one less spot available in that range for the other leg(s) to also come in. I know the math is terrible. Spare me. But let’s be honest. Some bets are just fun, and these are fun for me. I want to continue to be long on these two young up-and-coming talents.
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