Good news for the rank and file on the PGA Tour: Scottie Scheffler is taking this week off. That leaves a sizeable power vacuum at the top of the Rocket Mortgage Classic odds board, particularly given that just one player in the world top 20 will be teeing it up in Detroit.

That player is Tom Kim, who last weekend lost in a playoff to Scheffler in the Travelers Championship, where the world No. 1 became the first PGA Tour member since Arnold Palmer in 1962 to win six times before July. With Scheffler taking some time off, Kim opened as the odds favorite atop a wide-open field that also includes Cameron Young, Akshay Bhatia, Chris Kirk, Will Zalatoris and Robert McIntyre.

Also entered is defending tournament champion Rickie Fowler, who claimed the Rocket last season to snap a four-year winless skid. Fowler hasn’t won since, and he heads to Detroit Golf Club having missed the cut in two of his last three starts, and without a top-10 finish this season.

2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic Odds

Odds as of June 25

Rocket Mortgage Classic Picks

Tom Kim to Win (+1150)

How’s this for clutch: Kim sank his birdie putt on the 72nd hole to force a playoff with Scheffler after climate protestors stormed the green to interrupt the Travelers. Yeah, he’s a dude, all right.

The 22-year-old will be playing for the ninth consecutive week, and he’s only getting better as his schedule goes along. Kim’s solo second in Cromwell followed a very respectable T26 at the U.S. Open and a T4 at the Canadian Open, and he has the game to capitalize on layouts that offer lots of scoring changes. We should see more of that this week in Detroit, where Kim finished seventh in 2022.

Akshay Bhatia Top-5 Finish (+450)

While he’s won twice on the PGA Tour, Bhatia has never recorded back-to-back top-five finishes in golf’s big leagues. He’ll have a chance this week, coming off a T5 at the Travelers that included a 64 in the third round.

The Californian has shown hints that he’s on the verge of a breakthrough, like his victory in this year’s Texas Open that opened with a 63. Like a lot of other players, Bhatia can go really low on week-to-week PGA Tour setups designed to encourage scoring. But he also has to learn to pick his spots, unlike his fruitless thrash out of the rough at TPC River Highlands that took him out of the mix to win. 

Taylor Pendrith Top-10 Finish (+315)

Since missing the cut in five out of six events in early spring, Pendrith has been on a nice run that’s so far netted a victory in the Byron Nelson CJ Cup, a top-10 on the major-tournament layout at Quail Hollow, and a T16 in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.

The Canadian has missed just one cut in his last nine starts, and his average finish over that span in tournaments where he’s played the weekend is 15.75. And get this: take out majors, Signature events and the team tournament in New Orleans, and Pendrith has carded 12 consecutive rounds in the 60s, a stretch that goes back to the final round of the Puntacana Championship in late April—right when things began to turn around.

PGA Tour Rocket Mortgage Classic Betting Tips

With Scheffler taking time off to polish all his trophies and only a few A-listers making the journey to Detroit this week, sports bettors can find value all over the place.

Taylor Moore, who’s finished fourth and sixth in the Rocket the past two years, is a robust +550 to crack the top 10. Even a strong player like McIntyre, who won the Canadian Open earlier this season, is +400 to crack the top 10 and a healthy +4000 to win.

So the issue isn’t value—it’s parsing who’s a legit contender this week, and who’s not. The odds love Cameron Young, who finished T9 last week in a Signature event thanks to a third-round 59. But his opening 72 in the same tournament was his 13th score in the 70s in his past 15 rounds, and his Travelers top 10 was his first since Augusta. Did he really find something, or just really take to TPC River Highlands? We’ll find out in Detroit, where Young tied for second the last time he played there in 2022.

The odds are also high on Min Woo Lee, who had a very nice T21 at the U.S. Open, but hasn’t scored a top-10 finish since his runner-up at PGA National in early March. Zalatoris is one of the more familiar names competing in Detroit, but since flirting with the top of the leaderboard at Augusta he’s hit a miserable stretch of seven starts with two missed cuts and a best finish of 41st. Kirk won a Signature event in the season-opening Sentry, but he’s on a stretch of six tournaments with three missed cuts and a best finish of T26.

Some of this is predictable, given that the caliber of golf course that Tour players compete on takes a decided step up in late spring and early summer—when we get the PGA, the U.S. Open, the Wells Fargo, the Memorial, and the Canadian Open. Target golf goes out the window during that period. But now we’re in a stretch where it’s back, with the Travelers, Rocket and John Deere all in succession leading into the Scottish Open. We’re in for lots of red numbers, and the possibility of players who did well in March and April flirting with the top of the leaderboard once again.