Silverado Key Fantasy Stats

Safeway Open

October 4th – 7th, 2018

Silverado C.C. (North)

Napa, CA

Par: 72 / Yardage: 7,166

Purse: $6.2 million

with $1,116,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Brendan Steele

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 2018.
This is the fifth 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 has had a deep relationship with professional golf. A couple of years ago Johnny Miller put together an investment group to buy the Napa resort and it’s two golf courses which were built in the 1960s. Both courses were designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. and were 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 7,166 yards.
Last year the course played to a 71.76 scoring average, just a quarter of a shot under par. It was the 23rd hardest course on the PGA Tour, so you can say the course is very respectable. One of the reasons for the scoring was perfect weather with perfect course conditions, but winds brought the scores up almost a shot harder last year than in 2017 when the course played to a 70.83 average. For the pros the hardest aspect of the course is hitting fairways, 50.25% of the fairways were hit last year as it ranked the 3rd hardest course to hit in 2018. Even with the tight fairways, the players hit 66.82% of the greens making it the 29th hardest course to hit in regulation. With that 1,556 birdies were made on the course as only 14 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 16th hardest greens to score on which meant that lot’s of putts dropped during the week.

In looking at how last years winner Brendan Steele did it for the 2nd year in a row he couldn’t have been better in most stats for both years. In 2017 he was T-5th in Driving Accuracy and T3rd last year. In greens hit he was T-21st in 2017 and 4th last year. In 2017 Steele made the most birdies of anyone in the field, 24 which is the most birdies made in the three previous years it had been played at Silverado. Last year he made 19 birdies which ranked T-5th. Another key for Steele was on and around the greens, he was T-7th in Scrambling in both 2017 and last year. He T-1st in Sand Save Percentage in 2017 and T-12th last year, he was 6th in strokes gained-putting in 2017 and 29th last year. So we could say that Steele was all-around the best player both weeks.

One thing that is important to realize is that this is the first event of 2019 and with it those 50 that earned cards off the Web.Com Tour will be important. Of those 50, 49 are in the field as Nicholas Lindheim, who earned a PGA Tour cards for 2019 is the only player not in the field. So we have to remember that almost a third of the field is off last year’s (Which finished 2 weekends ago) Web.Com Tour which has a different style of courses.

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 not only scrambling but Sand saves and in order to do that we will use strokes gained around the green 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.

*Strokes Gained-Around-the-Green: Looks at the combination of gaining strokes by getting 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 average: Players that make the most birdies averaged per rounds played

Of the 144 players in the field, 93 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2018.  Remember, 49 of the players were off the Web.Com Tour.:

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