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Aldrich Potgieter and 2 Other Fantasy Golf Longshots at the Rocket Classic

Longshots are definitely capable of winning the PGA Tour's Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club.
May 15, 2026; Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, USA; Aldrich Potgieter at the seventh hole during the second round of the PGA Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: James Lang-Imagn Images
May 15, 2026; Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, USA; Aldrich Potgieter at the seventh hole during the second round of the PGA Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: James Lang-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

A lesser-tiered PGA Tour event is just what we eye up in fantasy golf. It thins out the variance within the field and makes longshots ever more possible to win the event. Instead of needing to defeat a Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy, the standard are hold to a much lower extentis held, with the Rocket Classic winner having an average pre-event World Ranking of >60th. With this fact, we pivot to 3 longshot picks for the weekend.

Chandler Phillips

Phillips is among our top FanDuel picks of the week. He is also our top longshot of the week. Phillips finished T-3 at last week's 3M Open. He also has three T-15 finishes in 3 of the 4 prior events. Better yet, Phillips finished T-13 at last year's Rocket Classic. It feels as if Phillips is primed for a top-25 result with top-5 upside, and at a price outside the top-40 salaried golfers on the weekend.

Aldrich Potgieter

Last year's champion of the event is a long shot, ranked outside the top 40 golfers. Thus, he is a longshot pick.

Potgieter won the 2025 Rocket Classic at 22-under-par, defeating Max Greyserman and Chris Kirk in a playoff. He is a young player who crushes the golf ball, ranking 1st on the PGA Tour in driving distance (330 yards per drive). As highlighted in our fantasy golf analysis, strokes gained off-the-tee will be more important than most other events.

Ben James

His hot start to his PGA Tour career ended when he missed the cut last week at the 3M Open. Yet, James has flashed awesome upside, which makes us love him as a potentially undervalued asset in the future. James' shallow PGA Tour beginnings feature a T-4 at the Corales Puntacana Championship, a T-15 at the ISCO Championship, and a T-23 at the US Open.

James has played the Rocket Classic before, previously doing so in 2024 with a T-44 result. The 23-year-old is the No. 1-ranked golfer out of the 2025 PGA Tour University Class, so we know the young man has supreme talent in his golf bag. Let's get him into the trophy room now.

Closing Notes...

Truth be told, the Rocket Classic is a very wide-open event. We love our top picks, as featured below. If a non-top-20 golfer in the world wins, it could be anyone who gets hot at the right time.

Fantasy Golf Picks at the Rocket Classic — FanDuel

Fantasy Golf Picks at the Rocket Classic — DraftKings

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Thomas Carelli
THOMAS CARELLI

Thomas Carelli is a sportswriter based on Northern New Jersey. He is a massive New York Jets and Mets fan, but that is not where is sports fandom stops. He loves to watch and play golf, all things football, baseball, and much more. If he can watch it, he will. Thomas graduated from William Paterson University in 2018 with a Bachelor's Degree in Sport Management. He spent 4 years working at a local golf course, volunteered past PGA events, and spent some part-time experience with the New York Jets events team. His passions for sport runs deep and his articles show for it.