Rocket Mortgage Classic expert picks and predictions with our PGA Pro’s best bets for the 2024 golf tournament

In this betting preview:

• Tournament format breakdown
• Expert picks and predictions
• BetMGM odds to win
• Betting trends from past winners
• Course overview

DETROIT, MI — After a rough finale for our best bets at the Travelers Championship last weekend, we're tailing the PGA to the Rocket Mortgage Classic at the Detroit Golf Club. As always, this betting preview will dole out the odds, course and tournament overviews, and our best bets and top props.

Travelers concluded seven straight weeks of having the lead late on a Sunday and ultimately losing our outright winner pick — seven straight since we took home the CJ Cup title with 100-1 winner Taylor Pendrith. Along this recent run, there have been some bad beats, but Sunday would have made Stanford Steve fall out of his chair in his home state. The picture above displays the final round pairings. Our two outrights and the best player on the planet. The odds were not in our favor, but little did we know the golf gods would be against us as well. On the 72nd hole, protestors stormed the 18th green at TPC River Highlands.

Now that could have been the beat: protestors disrupt play, shake up Tom Kim, and he misses the tying birdie putt. That's not what happened. He made that tournament-tying putt. The bad beat starts after the scorecards are signed. Those protestors damaged the 18th green, thus forcing the PGA TOUR to change hole locations. Why not move to another hole that wasn't damaged, rather than continue play where moments earlier law enforcement officers tackled protestors into the playing surface? And, as if trying to compete with Scheffler on a level playing field isn't hard enough, let's move the hole location we just BIRDIED!

Whether or not writing this diatribe is therapeutic is debatable — but in the end, we just have to move on. We won the Rocket Mortgage Classic last year with Rickie Fowler (+1400). I'm going to channel that positive energy into another great week and this time RTL will finish it off.

This preview is just that: a preview. For a complete list of my betting predictions covering the Rocket Mortgage Classic winners, finishing positions, and H2H matchups, please go to Read The Line and subscribe.

Rocket Mortgage Classic expert picks and predictions

Best bet to win: Maverick McNealy (+3000 on BetMGM)

Mav McNealy is an elite player in this field. Prior to the three-week signature/major run we have been on, McNealy finished top 25 in three straight starts. Since coming off his shoulder injury, Mav has only missed one cut and that was in January.

I walked with him back at WMPO, and I was impressed with his ball striking. McNealy has always been a great scorer from close range, but now he has heat off the tee and an approach game to complement it. He's fifth in the field for BoB% and seventh in par-4 scoring! Listen to the trend and take him as your top gun this week!

Best bet to place: Taylor Pendrith to finish top 20 (+163 on BetMGM)

Remember when Read The Line predicted Pendrith to win the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in May at 100-1? Guess what: TPC Craig Ranch is a great comp course for Detroit Golf Club.

Since winning, Pendrith has four top-25 results in six starts. The win has propelled his game, and now he returns to a spot where he finished runner-up in 2022 and 14th a year ago. Take Taylor with 20 places and cash in.

Best head-to-head bet: Robert MacIntyre over Taylor Moore (+105 on BetMGM)

Moore has an incredible event history finishing fourth and sixth in his last two starts here. Here’s the rub: Moore hasn’t finished in the top this season since March and has missed three of his past four cuts!

MacIntyre, meanwhile, just won the RBC Canadian, finished eighth at the PGA and 16th at Travelers, and he's gaining six strokes on average against the field over his past five starts. Take the Scot if you plan to get more out of this bet.

Rocket Mortgage Classic live odds to win

Odds (shorter than +10000) courtesy of BetMGM. 

Rocket Mortgage Classic: Conditions, winning trends

Wild weeks like the Rocket Mortgage are not as difficult to handicap as many pundits would have you believe. Every course has specific characteristics. When scoring is the theme, there has to be a direct path to 25 under par. Believe it or not, that journey involves a one-way road.

We had it nailed down last week at TPC River Highlands, and I see a similar route to success at DGC. Looking back through the five previous leaderboards, trends start to become quite clear. Not every guy we predict will perform to the level needed, but you better believe those players have the best chance of winning when they do.

In 2023, and similarly in the previous editions, each player in the top 10 gained at least two strokes on the field with their flatstick. There were 13 players in that top 10 a year ago, and 10 of them gained at least 3.5 strokes. The five winners have averaged +5.8 strokes on the field putting in the year they won. That's over a stroke better than the second most influential category, which is approach play. We'll get to that next. Those same five winners averaged 27 sub-par scores in their winning campaign. How do you get almost 30 birdies in one tournament?

This is the specific path I'm talking about. If we need 30 birdies, then the winning player needs 40+ birdie chances. Those are putts inside 25 feet from the hole. This implies great approach play to create that level of proximity to the hole. Fifty percent of approaches at DGC happen from 150 yards and in. That's 11 percent more than the TOUR average. A significant percentage happen from 100 yards or less. Four par 4s at DGC measure under 400 yards and there are four par 5s. The leaderboards are littered with great wedge players. Those men build birdie chances by knocking it close and converting, hence the heavy weight on putting performance.

Getting to wedge approach length (or closer) implies some serious length off the tee on a 7,300-yard course. Average driving distance for the field at Rocket Mortgage is 13 yards over the PGA TOUR average, and driving accuracy is a little over the TOUR standard as well. Guess what? Fairways are relatively wide and there's little or no penalty for missing them. These guys are going to wind up and let it rip. Case in point: Adam Hadwin lost 3.5 strokes to the field OTT last year, shot 24 under par, and lost in a playoff to Fowler and Morikawa. Hadwin did gain 10 shots on the greens!

There's that putter theme again. Driver everywhere and wedge proximity. Convert as many putts as possible and that's a majority of your top 10 from the past five years at DGC. Measuring par 4 performance will help as those same five winners gained an average of nine strokes on those holes. When it comes to putting specifics, I was also researching who makes the most putts inside 15'. You must measure the skills needed to win. When you do, there's a list of players that pop. Find the path, then the players. Examine course history and you have a contender’s list.

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Rocket Mortgage Classic course breakdown: Detroit Golf Club

Detroit Golf Club has hosted the Rocket Mortgage Classic since the tournament started in 2019. This wonderful 36-hole facility in "suburban" Detroit sits just south of the infamous 8 Mile. DGC has two courses called the North and South. One hole on the South and 17 from the North come together to create the tournament routing. The par-72 layout at 7,370 yards plays just as short as TPC River Highlands last week. The additional par 5s only add to the low scoring, as the average winning total is 23 under par. A traditional birdiefest, the winners have been a balance of tourney favorites and young talented touring professionals.

One large reason for the scoring is the condition of the course. DGC has been soft over the years, and this edition plans to be no different. Detroit has seen an inch of rain over the past week, and we expect more during the event. Predicted wind is under 15 mph, and temperatures will be perfect for play. The average green size is around 5,100 sq/ft, so the targets are smaller than average, but the approach shots are not! The field of 156 will play 50 percent of their approach shots from under 150 yards. That's 10 percent higher than the TOUR average.

An even greater difference is seen in the driving distance numbers. DGC has very little penalty for missing the fairway. Bryson, Tony Finau, and Cam Young have all enjoyed great success here. The field average is 13 yards longer than the PGA TOUR average. Players pound away off the tee at DGC and as a result length should be favored. The course routing starts on the North Course, grabs one hole from the South, and then uses the North to complete the routing.

• Front nine: North 8, N9, South 1, N2, N3, N4, N5, N6, N7
• Back nine: North 10, N11, N12, N13, N14, N15, N16, N17, N18

The scorecard displays four par 3s (average length 192 yards), 10 par 4s (average 428 yards), and four par 5s (average 580 yards). The par-5 number is stretched by the 635-yard fourth hole. Those 10 par 4s account for five holes under 425 yards and five more over 450! It's quite the polar set of 4s with four of them under 400 yards. The top 65 and ties survive the 36-hole cut and play for a purse of $9.2 million. First-place receives $1.65 million and 500 FedEx Cup points. Those may be more valuable than the cash, as we only have six competitive weeks left to get inside the top 70 and the playoffs.

Twelve holes have a birdie rate over 15 percent, while only five holes own a bogey rate over that value. It is a birdiefest in every sense. The average cutline is three under, and four of the five winners have been in the mid 20s under par. Make sure everyone on your card can go low. We aren't worried about bogey avoidance this week. If your player is trying to save pars, he's getting lapped by the leaderboard. We nailed two long-shot leaders on the Travelers board — Bhatia (80-1) and Kim (50-1) both finished inside the top five. Let's fire up the PGA notebook again — and this time not "lose yourself" on the final hole, but rather redeem this run with a well-deserved win.

Read The Line is the leading golf betting insights service led by 5-time award winning PGA Professional Keith Stewart. Read The Line has 30 outright wins and covers the LPGA and PGA TOUR, raising your golf betting acumen week after week. Subscribe to Read The Line’s weekly newsletter and follow us on social media: TikTok, Instagram, Twitter.