It’s unlikely that you experienced much churn in your league action at the Rocket Classic. That’s because 86 golfers made the cut and Aldrich Potgieter prevailed. The breakthrough champion was rostered by just 1.3 percent of all gamers in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by PGA TOUR Superstore. That combination translated into a spread of wealth on the weekend that included nearly everything except for FedExCup bonus points for the winner.

Playoff victim Max Greyserman was the 17th-most owned, but at just 6.9 percent, while the first guy to be eliminated in the three-way playoff, Chris Kirk, could be found on only 1.5 percent of the rosters.

The narrative entering last week, as it is again for this week’s John Deere Classic, is to prioritize cuts made, but when so many golfers cash and an outlier wins, it rewards only the margins. And because long-term front-runners cannot rely on uncommon outcomes for success, the best fantasy performers of the week were simply the luckiest. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s not sustainable because it’s so infrequent.

If you galloped along in place without any of the playoff participants rostered, feel fortunate that you didn’t fall behind, for having, say, only three to the weekend at Detroit Golf Club would’ve hurt. It was a week for pacers to continue to determine the stride. The chance of it happening in consecutive weeks is exponentially less, but it’s equally as possible as a stand-alone experience. So, we need to run it back.

Once again, we’re presented with a field of 156 and a cut of low 65 and ties at the conclusion of two rounds at TPC Deere Run. Round-by-round fantasy scoring again will be beefy, but a big difference between the Rocket Classic and the John Deere is that the ownership dispersion in the Quad Cities is greater. Because churn is directly proportional, its likelihood favors action.

Furthermore, unlike last week when the likes of Keegan Bradley, Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama competed, all for whom you may have considered roster management for the FedExCup Playoffs, none of the four are options this week and there aren’t any others who leap forward as automatics for whom to save a start when FedExCup bonus points are quadrupled in the last three tournaments of the fantasy season.

Planning for the next two weeks, only the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship contribute to the fantasy game, so ignore possible starts for guys who are more likely to appear in the concurrently contested ISCO Championship and Barracuda Championship, respectively. The current qualifiers for the last major of the year are listed in alphabetical order here. The remaining qualifying criteria are sorted chronologically at the bottom.

Captain

Denny McCarthy … As it concerns the popular debate between course history and recent form, I’ve always stated that it’s not a coin flip. Sometimes it’s both, but every time it’s golfer-specific. McCarthy is at the center of converging trends, but that he’s hung up three consecutive top 10s at TPC Deere Run isn’t a fluke. That’s hard to do for any golfer, no matter the venu,e but especially one that hosts a shootout. The world-class putter knows these greens.

Other considerations

• Ben Griffin ... Sits atop my Power Rankings and you’ll find him in my roster below, but the clock is ticking and I can’t accept a push. I’m also leaning into the difficulty for even the best golfers to struggle in at least one round. It happened with Patrick Cantlay (as my captain) in the second round last week. In a shootout, if you fall behind, you’re left there.
• J.T. Poston ... The No. 3 in my Power Rankings is a former winner here (2022) and a default investment in any tournament where low scoring is guaranteed. His average in the last 13 rounds of the tournaments is 66.77, and all of his 13 are in the 60s.

Rounding out the roster

With only eight tournaments remaining, it’s a great time to remind you that my lineup decisions are in the context of my competition in PGA TOUR Experts. Mike Glasscott has been leading for most of the season, and I’m starting to feel some pressure so that I don’t need a Hail Mary in the Playoffs. So, I need to zag in a week like this.

All six of my golfers can be found in the first nine slots of my Power Rankings, including the top five, but I’ve taken a pass on Jason Day (No. 7) strictly because Glass has rostered him. He’s earned that position to stymie and force my reaction, which is more comfortable in a shootout than, say, The Open Championship when I’m already hoping to retain my deficit, provided he’s not chasing me by then, of course.

My starters

• Bud Cauley
• Jake Knapp
• Denny McCarthy (C)
• Kevin Yu

My bench

• J.T. Poston (1)
• Ben Griffin (2)

Careful

For almost every tournament, a usually impressive subset of the field warrants avoiding, and it might be represented in my Power Rankings, which is not written in the context of any fantasy golf format. In this section, I single out those who demand a pause and why.

Davis Thompson ... He’s No. 14 in my Power Rankings for lots of obvious reasons, not the least of which is that he’s the defending champion, but his current form is why he’s not higher than No. 14. He’s gone 10 starts without a top 20 upon arrival. For the record, because his breakthrough was on his trajectory when he turned pro, it doesn’t bother me at all that he’s going through unique demands on his time for the first time.

Aldrich Potgieter ... The newest winner on the PGA TOUR rounds out my Power Rankings at No. 15 and, at last check, he’s drawing 19.7 percent of gamers to roster him this week. I’m all for riding hot hands but he’s still a shiny, new toy with which we’re learning how to play. The focus of this week’s lesson is how he responds to a career achievement, and that’s not insignificant. He’s also a debutant and TPC Deere Run rewards experience.

Seamus Power ... Despite a 6-for-6 record with one top 10 among five top 25s and a scoring average of 67.67 at TPC Deere Run, he presents as a trap. Although the overall season has lacked firepower – he’s just 123rd in the FedExCup – an unspecified injury forced the 38-year-old Irishman to withdraw during his opening round of the RBC Canadian Open. He returned last week in Detroit (where he had recorded two top 15s) and missed the cut.

Luke Clanton ... Of the freshest class of PGA TOUR members that includes Gordon Sargent and David Ford, Clanton has fared the best in their limited action, but none have made any dents as professionals. Clanton was a co-runner-up here last year when he had nothing to lose, and he has nothing to lose again right now because his PGA TOUR card is secure through 2026, but there are stakes now, like making a push for the Playoffs that he can feel, and for the first time. There’s no reason to think that he won’t be on our short list regularly, but he’s not there yet.

Returning to competition

Eric Cole ... An illness knocked him out of the Travelers Championship when positioned at T14 through three rounds. And although he withdrew early from his commitment to the Rocket Classic, he still leads the PGA TOUR with 23 starts. He’s just 64th in the FedExCup with six top 25s, but he’s gone seven starts without one. In a vacuum, he’s a no-brainer in all games at TPC Deere Run, where he opened with a 62 en route to a T7 last year, but he’s now drifted into a contrarian role due to the various headwinds right now. That makes him ideal for chasers in fantasy.

Brian Campbell ... It’s been a challenging few weeks for the guy who defeated Aldrich Potgieter in a playoff at the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld. Then again, it’s been a rough stretch ever since that breakthrough victory. Campbell has cashed just five times in a dozen starts, withdrew from the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday with an injured shoulder, and then decommitted from the no-cut Travelers Championship due to an illness. The John Deere presents a soft landing of sorts, however. It’s where the University of Illinois product debuted as a professional on the PGA TOUR in 2015. In his only appearance since, he finished T17 in 2017, but let him go this one alone and for the foreseeable future until he rights the ship.

Nicholas Lindheim ... If only he could stay healthy. Almost two years removed from a terrific 2023 season on the Korn Ferry Tour, his return to the PGA TOUR in 2024 was devoid of noise. He hasn’t appeared in sanctioned competition since turning 40 last November, but he still has seven starts on a medical extension to see if he can reconnect with the kind of form that he flashed before his back disrupted things ... again.

Notable WDs

Davis Riley ... Since a T2 at the PGA Championship, he’s 3-for-5 and without a top-55 finish. This will be his first week off in the last five and ahead of his third appearance at the Genesis Scottish Open.

Danny Walker ... He’s missed three straight cuts and has fallen to 80th in the FedExCup, but the break allows him to reset for his debut next week in Scotland.

Norman Xiong ... This is his fourth early exit of the season, in part because he’s needed to be choosy with where to play. Has just two starts remaining on his medical extension and needs 98.053 FedExCup points to remain eligible for the FedExCup Playoffs.

Aaron Baddeley ... Since failing to meet the terms of his medical extension, he’s made 11 starts via the season-long, one-time exemption for 300 career cuts made, but the 44-year-old Aussie has cashed in just four of them and ranks 180th in the FedExCup.

Membership matters

Ben Martin ... A week ago in this space (and before that on my X), I explained Will Gordon’s situation as he was about to burn the last start on his Major Medical Extension. He needed to make the cut to retain eligibility for the FedExCup Playoffs, and he did, on the number no less. It was a developing story during Friday’s live telecast of the second round on Golf Channel, primarily because he would have lost his PGA TOUR card. Now it’s Martin’s turn. If he doesn’t withdraw before the first round of the John Deere, he’ll exhaust his Major Medical. He needs no worse than a two-way share of third place to retain status in the category for the remainder of the year, but as a PGA TOUR winner, he’ll always have a PGA TOUR card, so he’d merely join Gordon in the Beyond 150 Reshuffle category if he falls short. (Because of the larger reordering of categories that includes the guys with conditional status, it’s irrelevant that Martin already had achieved it.)

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