Rocket Mortgage Classic: Dark Horse Candidates in Detroit

Corey Conners – 100/1

There are two different Corey Conners that show up to events. There is the Conners that comes out crushing it. He finished second and shot 71-68-64-68 at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October, then T-3rd at The Sony Open in January, shooting 68-67-64-64. He finally pulled through at the Valero Texas Open in April and won, shooting 69-67-66-66.

He has only finished inside the top 30 at one other event. He has made ten cuts this year, but he has also missed ten cuts. A make the cut bet can be a nerve-wracking one to make. If he does make the cut, you can feel confident that he will make a run.

Every two-and-a-half to three months, Conners has one of those top five finishes. A weak field, a new event, and a new course seems like a perfect time for him to make another run, this time as a dark horse.

There are two things that will give you an early idea of Conners chances to win this week. One is his success off the tee, where he ranks 12th in SG off the tee. He finds the fairway quite often at 66.46%, good enough for 44th, a big help to his SG ranking of 12th.

Next is how often he hits the green. There is only one golfer on tour better than him, as he hits GIR on 72.03% of the holes he plays. You hear these numbers, and wonder how he could struggle so often.

Drive for show, putt for dough. That’s how. Those with the greatest short games of all-time, all had great careers, or extended their career’s further than you thought they would have been able to. Here is where Conners struggles. He is 133rd around the green and 199th in putting.

We know that he is going to putt himself in a lot of fairways, and hit a lot of greens. Keep track of the putts that Conners hits this week. My prediction is his low number of putts will translate strongly to a low score and plenty of birdies in Detroit.