PGA Tour: Players ready to go low at inaugural Rocket Mortgage Classic

The PGA Tour returns to Michigan this week for the inaugural Rocket Mortgage Classic. The course at the Detroit Golf Club could allow for low scoring from a strong field.

A short memory can serve one well in golf. When you hit a bad shot, you forget it before you hit the next one. But for PGA pros, it pays to remember the subtleties of perennial courses. This week, the Tour swings by a new track at the Detroit Golf Club, where players won’t have a memory bank to rely on.

So what can fans expect from the new course? If you trust veteran caddie Mark Long, who’s responsible for creating the official Tour yardage books, we’re in for some fireworks. Long recently provided a hole-by-hole preview for the Detroit Free Press. Suffice to say, he doesn’t anticipate too many bogeys.

Here’s a hole-by-hole preview of the hole-by-hole preview:

Hole 1: “So that’s a birdie hole.”

Hole 2: The out of bounds left is “kind of not that close.”

Hole 3: “An absolute birdie hole.”

Hole 4: “That’s a birdie hole.”

Hole 5: “It’s not a long par 3…you shouldn’t be missing that green.”

Hole 6: “Not really a birdie hole.” That’s about as tough as we’ve seen.

Hole 7: “It’s a real reachable par 5.”

Hole 8: “Eight’s a birdie hole.”

Hole 9: “Nine’s a nice par 3.”  Nice holes don’t scare pros.

So at the turn we’ve got four birdie holes, a reachable par 5, a nice par 3, an unmissable par 3 green and a pair of manageable pars. The tournament hasn’t started, but I’m ready to put Dustin Johnson on 59 watch.

Hole 10: “That’ll be another birdie hole.”

Hole 11: “Won’t be too much of a problem.”

Hole 12: “It shouldn’t be too tough a hole.”

Hole 13: “It’s a short hole…an 80-yard wedge or something.”

Hole 14: “Kind of a fun par 5 that’s kind of wide open.”

Hole 15: “Fifteen’s just a short, little fun par 3.”

Hole 16: “Could be kind of a birdie hole”

Hole 17: “You can reach it. There’s not really a ton of trouble.”

Hole 18: Uh oh. Words like “decision,” “tough green” and “three putting.”

Flip wedges. Birdie holes. Rickie Fowler commercials. The Return of the Gary Woodland, the biggest star in the game. This tournament has it all.

The only thing that could stop these guys from ripping the course apart is if the course is already ripped apart when they get there. A potential strike from the maintenance crew could be the great equalizer this week.

If the fairways get mown and the greens roll true, it’ll be a shootout in Detroit.