For the first time in years, the PGA Tour is adding a core-season, full-purse new event to its schedule. And not once, but two weeks in a row. This week it is the Rocket Mortgage Classic, being played in metro Detroit. The Rocket Mortgage Classic has a four-year contract through 2022 to be played at Detroit Golf Club, which is about nine miles north of Ford Field, the Detroit Lions’ downtown NFL stadium near the Detroit River.

It would have been tough to identify a favorite for the event, except that Dustin Johnson, the world no. 1 per the Hawley Ratings, is entered, and you must drop down all the way to no. 12 to find Rickie Fowler as the main competition. There are only two other entrants from the rankings top 20, those being Hideki Matsuyama and U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, and 12 more from the top 50.

With no record of pros’ performance on the course, and not even a prior history for the event at a different course, the number of factors that a person might consider in assessing the field is drastically reduced. Let’s start with the course itself. The Detroit Golf Club current configuration of two 18-hole courses goes back to a Donald Ross design of a bit over 100 years ago. All but one hole of the Rocket will be played on the North course, a short, classic layout.

Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press sought out Tour pro and Michigan native Brian Stuard as a player with at least some history on the course. Per freep.com, it was over 10 years from Stuard’s last round at Detroit Golf Club during his college days until a practice round this week Monday. “I didn’t remember too much about it,” Stuard, 36, said after playing the front nine. “I remember a few holes here and there. But just seeing the front nine, it’s what I remember it being, just kind of an old-school, tree-lined golf course.”

Stuard cited accuracy as a likely attribute of those who will be successful on the course. “You’ve got to drive it in the fairway, I think, and then controlling where you hit your second shot,” he said. “Because the greens are tricky in spots. So I think it’s going to be managing where you’re at.”

The Free Press article also noted that rain is expected, and if so, soft greens could result in good scoring conditions.

A second factor in the analysis process is recent performance. Among the bigger names in the field, neither Johnson nor Fowler has done anything remarkable lately. The last top-10 by either was Johnson’s runner-up finish in the PGA in mid-May. Among other prominent names, Chez Reavie and Woodland are winners of the last two events on the Tour, the Travelers and U.S. Open. In a string of 13 events going back to mid-January, Matsuyama has four top-10s, three other top-20s, and no finish worse than 33rd.

Among the longshots:
Rory Sabbatini, ranked 50th, has made 12 straight cuts with four top-10s and all finishes in the top 50.
Sebastian Munoz, ranked 178th, had back-to-back finishes of 10th and 11th in the Nelson and Canadian before missing the cut last week.
Stephan Jaeger, ranked 230th, was 30th last week and in the top 20 the two prior appearances.
Zach Sucher (not enough appearances to be ranked) has made three of four cuts this year, all in the last two months, including last week’s runner-up finish.

And icy cold? Fowler was noted above. Also from the top 50 in the Hawley Ratings, we have 35th-rated Charles Howell with four missed cuts and no finish in the top 40 in his last six appearances; 36th-rated Jason Kokrak with a missed cut last week and nothing in the top 20 in the last two months; and 37th-rated Bubba Watson with two missed cuts and nothing in the top 50 going back five appearances.

Next week’s event is the 3M Open, also new to the Tour. It will be played at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine MN, in the north metro.

The last two core-season, full-purse new events added to the Tour schedule were the Quicken Loans National and Military Tribute at the Greenbrier. The National, associated with Tiger Woods, no longer exists. The Greenbrier has been shifted out until after the Tour Championship.