Key Fantasy Stats Silverado

Safeway Open

Ocober 13th – 16th, 2016

Silverado C.C. (North Course)

Napa, CA

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,203

Purse: $6 million

with $1,080,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Emiliano Grillo

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most vital stats from Silverado Resort, North course based on data from last year’s Safeway Open and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016.
This is the third year that the Safeway Open is being played at Silverado which has a history of holding PGA Tour events going back to the 60s. So the resort had a deep relationship with professional golf. A couple years ago Johnny Miller put together an investment group to buy the Napa resort. The two courses are good, but they were never updated with the advent of new equipment. So when Miller came in he wanted to rework the two courses and bring them up to date. He started first on the North Course by revamping all of the greens, put in new bunkering and realigned the fairways and trimmed the trees that were too cumbersome. The most important item in the change was changing the greens by adding some undulation and making them very fast. Miller also added 300 yards so it will play at a par 72 and at 7,203 yards.
Last year the course played to a 71.11 scoring average, close to a shot under par. It was the 33rd hardest course on the PGA Tour. One of the reason for the low scoring was perfect weather with perfect course conditions and no wind. For the pros the hardest aspect of the course is hitting fairways, 53.94% of the fairways were hit last year as it ranked the 10th hardest course to hit. Even with the tight fairways, the players hit 67.84% of the greens making it the 29th hardest course to hit in regulation. With that 1,630 birdies were made on the course as only 8 other courses saw more birdies made, so hitting fairways and greens will lead to making a lot of birdies. As for the greens they were the 39th hardest greens to score on which meant that lot’s of putts dropped during the week.

In looking at how last years winner Emiliano Grillo did it he couldn’t of been better in most stats. He was T-8th in Driving Accuracy and T-16th in Greens hit. Now Grillo didn’t make many birdies, he had 18 but 16 players made more than him.

For the second week in a row, the tour plays a course that doesn’t favor the long hitter, matter of fact the key to playing well at Sedgefield is to hit it straight and position your drives for the shot into the green. A look at the list of champions at the Wyndham since the event went back to Sedgefield in 2008 shows that the list of winners are guys that either hit is short and straight, or in the case of hitting it long players like Webb Simpson, Sergio Garcia and Patrick Reed that also can hit it straight and long. Another important aspect of driving, the holes that dogleg need players to lay it up to avoid going through the fairway and it’s always best to be in the fairways. The course is tree line and that is more of a hazard than the rough which is not as penal as it could be.
Like any other great Donald Ross course the greens are tough, first in hitting them if you miss them it’s a hard up and down. The greens are also pretty flat and lot’s of putts are made, but good and bad putters. So it’s a course that favors short hitters, those that do scramble well and average putters. Last week was a perfect example, winner Ryan Moore is one of the shortest hitters on tour, can scramble ok and putt ok and yes he does make lot’s of birdies. Now Grillo won thanks to hitting the ball great, keeping it in play and on the 19 greens he missed he got it up and down for par on 16 of those holes

So in looking at our four categories, we see how much driving and getting the ball on the green makes a difference. So we pick Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green because at Silverado putting the ball in play off the tee is very important, probably one of the most important items on this Robert Trent Jones course. Next up we pick scrambling, because if the greens are missed you have to still make par. After that putting is important, so we have picked Strokes Gained putting as our third most important element. Last is birdies as we pointed out lot’s of birdies are made on this course.

*Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green: Looks at the combination of length off the tee and accuracy, then getting the ball on the green so it determines who is best at all of these items.

*Scrambler: Who gets it up and down after missing a green.

*Strokes Gained Putting: The number of putts a player takes from a specific distance is measured against a statistical baseline to determine the player’s strokes gained or lost on a hole.

*Birdies: Players that make the most birdies
Also remember that there are 144 players in the field and this list only has 95 players. That’s because a lot of players who just got their PGA Tour cards from 2016 Web.Com Tour are in the field and played that tour full-time in 2016. As an example Emiliano Grillo didn’t have any stats when he won the Safeway Open last year, so it’s important to remember those Web.Com Tour players.

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.