🏌‍♀PGA Receives Huge Boost

Good Morning! The field is set for this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic at the Detroit Golf Club - click here to find out the groups and tee times for Round 1 and 2.

Don’t forget to check out our top betting picks for the tournament!

Fun Fact: Australia's Cameron Davis is the only non-American winner of the Rocket Mortgage Classic. He won it in 2021.

⛳ This day in history: On this date in 1911, John McDermott made history by becoming the first American-born champion of the US Open when he defeated George Simpson and Mike Brady in a playoff at Chicago Golf Club.

ODDS AND PICKS
Our Top Picks For Rocket Mortgage Classic

🚩 The Rocket Mortgage Classic tees off tomorrow with PGA Tour stars assembling at Detroit Golf Club to battle it out for the prestigious title.

💰 Purse: $9.2 million, winner takes home $1.65 million.

Here are our top picks we’re betting on:

🚀 Most Likely to Win: Tom Kim (+1200) enters this tournament after a narrow defeat in a playoff at the Travelers Championship. He excelled in both ball-striking categories, gaining over 3.5 strokes in each. Now, he returns to a course where he previously secured a seventh-place finish. Given the relatively weak competition, we anticipate Kim to dominate and take home the victory.

🚀 Key Player in the Top 5: Taylor Pendrith (+500) excels on bentgrass courses known for birdie opportunities. Besides his win earlier this season at TPC Craig Ranch, he has also secured a second-place and a 14th-place finish at Detroit Golf Club. Pendrith's strength off the tee and his impressive putting skills have made him a standout player. This combination of power and putting is ideal for this week's tournament, and we expect Pendrith to maintain his strong performance at Detroit Golf Club.

🚀 Key Player in the Top 10: Maverick McNealy (+225) could be the best putter in this field and is coming off an impressive ball-striking performance at the Canadian Open, where he gained 2.5 strokes on approach. A breakthrough is imminent, and Detroit Golf Club is an ideal venue for his skill set.

🚀 Key Player in the Top 20: Mat Wallace (+200) recently finished 15th at the KLM Open and has achieved two top-12 finishes in three appearances at Detroit Golf Club. This year, he also secured a top-five finish at TPC Craig Ranch. Given his track record, we have full confidence in his ability to perform well in a low-scoring tournament.

🚀 Underdog Likely to Emerge: Thorbjorn Olesen (+8000), already a winner this year on the DP World Tour, has been having a strong season. He recently finished 27th at the Canadian Open, gaining over 3.5 strokes in both approach and putting. Olesen has the ideal skills for this week's tournament, excelling in both approach shots and putting—key factors for success at Detroit Golf Club.

* All odds via BetMGM, at the time of publishing.

ALBATROSS
Scheffler's Caddie Surpasses Spieth's Season Earnings

Tedd Scott has earned more than Jordan Spieth so far in 2024. Spieth has had earnings of $2.5 million for his results on the PGA Tour, which is an unthinkable sum for most caddies, but not for Scott, who works with Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler has won six tournaments during the 2024 season. His income from those wins has been $23.3 million, 10% of which i.e. $2.3 million has been bagged by Scott.

From the rest of the nine events, Scott has bagged approximately $200,000 more. That takes Scott's total earnings to somewhere between $2,519,842 and $2,607,780 - a higher amount than Jordan Spieth.

Scott's earnings for the season are estimated to be not just more than Spieth but also several other former World No 1s including Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose and Adam Scott.

💰Is Scott the Richest Bagman Ever? In 2023, Scott earned nearly $843,600 on the PGA Tour. He has tripled it this year and the season is only halfway through - it is a very exponential jump that he has had this year!

To put it into perspective, the average prize money earned by a regular PGA Tour member is only $1.5 million. While there is not enough data to compare the all-time earnings of caddies, Scott's earnings are so huge that we can safely say he is one of the richest caddies in the history of the sport.

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TWEET
Worth Mentioning

EAGLE
These Pros Improved Massively After Switching Drivers

Scottie Scheffler bagged his sixth Tour win of the season at the Travelers Championship with TaylorMade’s Qi10 driver. But it's not just Scheffler who has made noticeable improvements after switching drivers - tour stars Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Collin Morikawa have seen similar improvements in accuracy.

Incidentally, all of them are using TaylorMade's Qi10 driver - Morikawa and Fleetwood use Qi10 LS, while Scheffler and McIlroy use Qi10.

📌 McIlroy has been 15 percent better this season in driving accuracy (53% in 2023 versus 68% in 2024) and Fleetwood has improved by 14% during the same period.

📌 Morikawa leads in accuracy while McIlroy still tops the charts in driving distance.

📌 All four currently find themselves inside the top 25 in driving accuracy.

🎯 What's Special About the Qi10 Driver? The Qi10 takes a huge leap when it comes to stability and helps keep drives on the straight and narrow. It's unique head shape contributes significantly to the clubhead’s inertia by allowing mass to be placed further from the center of the clubhead.

There are three models in the Qi10 family: the standard Qi10, the Qi10 LS (low spin), and the Qi10 Max. They are being referred to as the "most forgiving models" ever.

LOCKER ROOM
What else is making news

Olympics: The Netherlands will not allow Joost Luiten, Darius Van Driel or Dewi Weber to represent the country in the Olympic men's and women's golf competitions. The national sports federation does not believe that the golfers are likely to finish highly in the Olympic competition.

Future Masters: Charlie Woods has been grouped with sons of other championship-winning dads at Future Masters. Jacob Immelman, a Clemson signee and son of Masters champ Trevor Immelman; Liam Curtis, son of Open champ Ben Curtis; and Henry Kuehne, son of Hank Kuehne, a former US Amateur champ who won twice on the Canadian Tour are in the same group as Charlie.

Teams Announced: Nelly Korda and Tony Finau will team up once again at the Grant Thornton Invitational in December. Lydia Ko and Jason Day will play together while Lexi Thompson will partner with Rickie Fowler.

PGA Tour: Reduced fields? Relegation? Korn Ferry Tour majors? Fewer exempt players? All this and more are being discussed by the 16-member Tour’s Player Advisory Council and could be implemented as soon as the 2026 season.

Soccer*Golf: Former English Premier League and World Cup footballer Peter Odemwingie has qualified as a PGA professional, more than six years after retiring from his original sport.

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BIRDIE
PGA Tour Receives Viewership Boost In Consecutive Weeks

Scottie Scheffler’s historic sixth win of the season at the Travelers Championship produced a ratings bump for CBS Sports and the PGA Tour. The network delivered its most-watched Travelers Championship final round since 2021, up 7% from the 2023 edition, which saw New England native Keegan Bradley triumph in front of his hometown crowd.

Sunday’s coverage averaged 2.607 million viewers and peaked with 4.330 million viewers between the 4:30 pm and 4:45 pm ET quarter hour—impressive metrics considering the PGA Tour bumped tee times up an entire hour due to pending weather.

Sunday’s final round was the most-streamed Travelers Championship round ever on its streaming platform, Paramount+.

PGA Tour TV ratings have seen a declining pattern throughout the season so far but the last few weeks have been really productive. Earlier this month, NBC's Sunday coverage of the US Open drew a record 11.4 million viewers - the highest since 2015.

⛳️ LIV Golf Sets New Attendance Record: LIV Golf’s Nashville tournament set the attendance record among the league’s United States events to date.

More than 40,000 spectators attended the tournament at The Grove over three days, according to LIV communications. That included sellout crowds of 14,454 people on Saturday and Sunday.

LIV Golf’s Washington DC tournament at Trump National Golf Club in May earlier owned the highest attendance mark. No official figure was released, but estimations suggested close to 40,000 fans attended.

DRIVING RANGE
How To Hit Your Driver Straight

In today's video, we show you how to hit your driver straight and why you might be struggling with driver.

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