As a golfer, being in golf media has some perks. You (sometimes) get CIA-level clearance to OEM research and development areas, you get to be around and talk golf with like-minded people all the time (unlike Club Pro Guy, I want to hear about your 87), and in some cases, you actually get to play some golf FOR WORK!

This week, I and a couple of other members of the WRX team (Johnny Wunder and Brian Knudson) traveled to the Detroit Golf Club to experience the Rocket Mortgage Classic Media Day. The experience of a media day is generally along the lines of a meal, some PR, interviews with the sponsor CEO or a rep, and then some golf. This event followed those lines but included a couple of cool announcements to go along with the proceedings.

Charity Work

The one thing I can’t stress enough is that no matter the tournament big or small, there is a huge charity component that gives millions of dollars EVERY week to local organizations, from the First Tee, to other completely non-golf related charities. Each and every event on the PGA Tour is a benefit to the community. And the Rocket Mortgage Classic (RMC) is no exception.

There is one cool conceptual addition to this event and that is “Zone 313” (a reference to the Detroit area code). It involves holes 14 (a 515-yard par 5), 15 (a 155-yard par 3), and 16 (a 400-yard par 4). If culminating over all the rounds played a player makes an eagle, a hole in one, and a birdie, then $313, 000 additional dollars will be donated ($200,000 to the player’s charity of choice, and $113,000 to another local partner). Based on the length PGA Tour players hit the ball the deciding factor is going to be someone making a hole in one, so keep an eye out for this during tournament week because it’s going to mean extra green for some special organizations.

The Course

The Detroit Golf Club North Course (DGC has 36 holes) is a Donald Ross gem that has some of the trickiest greens I have ever played. The course as a whole is beautiful, with tree-lined fairways (not too tree-lined to be claustrophobic), bunkers that are hidden behind perfect mounding and challenging decision making hitting into greens.

Missing fairways will lead to bogeys, but based on the length of the course, I’ll state the obvious: The greens are going to be the only defense. With our amateur games, we expect the winning score to be around 20 under par on this 7,000-yard par 72. During the press conference, it was mentioned that there was the option to make two of the par 5s into 4s based on length, but if you think about par as just an objective construct (that’s an Andy Johnson from the Fired Egg take), then either way, who cares?!?! The world’s best players playing a classic architectural gem is going to make for a great tournament either way.

To get a better idea of how some of the players might handle the course, see our video below detailing some of the key holes and an explanation of Zone 313.