BlogFortinet Championship Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

So just like that, the 2022 season has ended, and we have even found out that Scottie Scheffler was the PGA Tour Player of the Year. Now it’s only two weeks since the Tour Championship, but just like that, the 2023 PGA Tour season is beginning.  Now this year marks the end of the wraparound season after being in place for ten years.  The season ends at the Tour Championship, but for those who aren’t in the top 70, there will be around six events to keep their Tour Cards.  There is also supposed to be a big event for those that participate in the FedEx Playoffs, all of this will be announced later.  One thing that will be interesting to see is how many sponsors will continue to foot the bill for an event that doesn’t give any FedExCup points.  This also begs the question, if you win the Fortinet Championship this week, you will get an invite to play in the Masters.  But if you win the Fortinet next year (If it is still playing), the winner will probably not get a Masters invite.  So for the regular season, 2024 will start in January, and the season will go on for eight months till the end of August.

But again, will these fall events stay the way they are, probably not.  You may see one of them, possibly Mayakoba, move opposite the Match Play like it was when the event was first played.  Other events like Napa and Houston will be looking for an open date in the January to August schedule.  As for the RSM Open and Sanderson Farms, guess they will have to decide if they will be demoted to 2nd class status and possibly stick it out for a change to the regular Tour.  It will be interesting to see what happens to the CJ Cup and the Zozo Championship.  Both of these events have a higher price tag on them as in the past, they have gotten first-class field.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of these events being the big event of the fall for those top-70 players, again all of this needs to be worked on.

For the last week and a half have been in California taking care of some family affairs, but I am going home on Thursday and since next week won’t have a preview because of the Presidents Cup, have some stories on the new players that join the tour from the Korn Ferry tour and look at who to watch in the 2023 season.  The appeal for this week is the Korn Ferry Tour graduates will be making their debut as full members of the PGA Tour.  So it will be interesting to see who this week can bounce out of the box early.  Last year Mito Pereira made his debut as a member of the PGA Tour and finished 3rd at the Fortinet.  Pereira finished 50th in the FedExCup race and will be remembered most for having a one-shot lead going into the final hole at the PGA Championship but made a double to finish 3rd.  Off the bat, I like Thomas Detry, who played on the DP World Tour and capitalized on four PGA Tour starts in 2022 that got him in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals.  Another former DP World player is Henrik Norlander, who has played on the PGA Tour and will return in 2023.  Also, watch Nick Hardy, who battled back from a wrist injury last year and almost made it into the top 125.  Also, Carl Yuan, Zecheng Dou, and Justin Suh who all had great 2022 on the Korn Ferry tour.  So check are look at some new players next week.

A good cheat sheet is this list of odds from the top bookmakers in England.

Another cheat sheet is this list of odds from the top bookmaker in Las Vegas.

About the Fortinet Championship:

This event was first called the Fry’s.Com Open and started in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 2007 and after three years at Grayhawk transferred to CordeValle Golf Club, close to its sponsor’s headquarters in San Jose.  The hope was that CordeValle would be a temporary home as it’s been a dream to hold the event at the Institute Golf Course in Morgan Hill, CA.   But construction problems prevented the event from being played on the ultra-private course that very few had ever seen.  So CordeValle was to be a short-term fix and was until the event moved to Napa in 2015.  Napa was a short-term solution at the time as the Institute Golf Course would get ready to hold the event. Still, after the success at Silverado and Frys dropping sponsorship, the event signed up Safeway as the title sponsor and stayed at the Silverado Resort, which is very popular with the players.  After the 2021 event, Safeway gave up its sponsorship and a company called Fortinet took over.  For anyone wondering what “Fortinet” does, they develop and sell cybersecurity solutions based in Sunnyvale, California.  They had revenue of $2.6 billion in 2020, so we can say they are a very successful company, and everyone would agree a good change.

Course information:

Many will not remember, but Silverado was a proud site of the PGA Tour between 1968 to 1980 and then held a senior event, the Transamerica, between 1990 and 2002.  So Silverado had a deep relationship with professional golf.  The resort changed direction because it didn’t need to spend the money to host a professional golf event.  Napa Valley has become an excellent destination for couples over 40, between the great weather and the vineyards. Still, the resort lost some of its lusters over the years and needed some sprucing up. One of the areas that have been improved was the golf courses.  There are two of them, the South and the North. A couple of years ago, Johnny Miller put together an investment group that purchased the courses, and Miller reworked the North Course. What Miller did was revamped all of the greens, put in new bunkering, realigned the fairways, and trimmed the trees that were too cumbersome.  Of course, because of the golf marketplace’s downturn, Miller didn’t go crazy by changing a lot of the holes, adding lakes and streams.  Still, Miller is happy at work, and he is hopeful of doing the same to the South Course.

So what will the pros find this week?  The greens are one of the things that Miller points out that makes it a better course.  “These greens are as tough as Augusta at high speeds,” Miller said to Golf.com. “I would probably have five three putts a round.”  The course was also increased from 6,900 to 7,166.  Now on the surface, this may be too short for the best pros in the world.  So I can see both the long-distance players having a field day while the shorter hitters were also enjoying shorter approaches to the greens.  One thing that was brought out in the 13 years it was played in the 70s,  the caliber of champions which included players like Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, and Ben Crenshaw among its winners.

Another critical aspect of the Miller redo, to improve playability and aesthetics, turf renovation, got rid of Kikuyu grass and returned the course to its original mix of rye and Kentucky bluegrass condition.

The course has become a big hit with the players, sponsors, and fans and provided some great theater.

Let’s take a look at vital stats that are important for those playing at Silverado.

This is based on the most vital stats from Silverado Resort, North course based on data from last year’s Fortinet Open and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2022. Remember this is the first event of the 2022/23 season, and there will be a lot of new Korn Ferry grads in the field.
This is the ninth year that the Fortinet Championship 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 its 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, putting in new bunkering and realigning the fairways, and trimming the too cumbersome trees. 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 71.04 scoring average, just about a shot under par, and was the 32nd hardest course on the PGA Tour in 2022. It played almost a shot above the 2021 scoring average of 70.21 and the same as it played in 2020 (71.24, 19th hardest course that year). The lack of wind makes the course play harder and easier.
For the pros, the hardest aspect of the course is hitting fairways, in 2022 47.105 of the fairways were hit as it was the 2nd hardest fairways to hit on the PGA Tour in 2022, only Wilmington C.C., which held last month’s BMW Championship was harder to hit. Again hitting fairways is key, in 2021, 51.64% of the fairways were hit as it was the 6th hardest fairways to hit In 2020, the field hit 50.03% of the fairways as it was the 2nd hardest fairways to hit in 2020. Only Olympia Fields, the site of the BMW Championship, was harder to hit. This is the norm for Silverado in 2019 53.65% of the fairways were hit as it ranked the 4th hardest course to hit in 2019.
Even with the tight fairways, the players hit 67.05% of the fairways as it ranked 28th hardest on the PGA Tour in 2022. Because the course only plays at a short 7,123 yards, it only means that despite missing a fairway, the player has a short iron that is easily maneuverable from rough. So in years, the rough is harder than other years, but with the drought, that isn’t the case. Now in 2021, the players hit 71.72% of the greens making it the 43rd hardest course to hit in regulation. Now, this was the all-time record for Silverado, in past years, it was harder to hit. In 2020 65.73% of the greens were hit, making it the 16th hardest course to hit in regulation.
One of the things that keeps scoring low is the total amount of birdies made, last year, 1,688 were made, as only 11 other courses saw more birdies made. In 2021 1,891 birdies were made, and only two other courses in 2021 saw more birdies made, so hitting fairways and greens does lead to making a lot of birdies.
As for the greens, they were the 6th hardest greens to score on as players made 70.7 feet of putts. The previous year in 2021, it was the
3rd hardest greens to score on as the players made 68 feet and 9 inches of putts per round.

So a combination of hitting it far and straight is important, so our first category is Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. In looking at last year’s champion Max Homa, he was 2nd in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green as he was 45th in driving distance and T-15th in driving accuracy. The previous year’s champion Stewart Cink was 3rd in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green as he was 17th in driving distance and was T-51st in driving accuracy. In 2020, Cameron Champ was 1st in Strokes Gained Tee-to-green, as he led in driving distance and was T-21st in driving accuracy. In 2019 Kevin Tway won and he was T-40th in Driving Accuracy and T-14th in driving distance, so he was 3rd in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. Comparing this with Brendan Steele, who won back to back in 2018 and 2017, Steele was 1st in Strokes Gained Tee-to-green in 2018 and 11th in 2017, so we can see the importance of this stat. So our first category is Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green.
Our second most important category is Strokes Gained Around-the-Green. That is because last year, the course ranked 28th in greens hit. In 2021 the course ranked 43rd in greens hit. Now it was drastically different in 2020 when the course ranked 16th in greens hit. So for those that miss greens, they have to get it up and down to score well. Last year the players got it up and down from off the green 60.79% of the time, T-29th for all courses in 2022. In 2021 the players got it up and down from off the green 61.99%, making it the 36th course in scrambling. In 2020 it was 60.89%, making it the 28th course in scrambling. As for bunkering the 18 greens have 36 bunkers around them so many players will have to get up and down from sand, last year the course ranked T-21st in Sand Save percentage while in 2021 it ranked 35th, in 2020 it ranked 25th. As for the champions, last year Max Homa was 24th in Strokes Gained Around-the-Green as he was T-75th in scrambling and T-60th in Sand Save percentage. He wasn’t very impressive in this category, but in 2021 Stewart Cink was 8th in Strokes Gained Around-the-Green as he was 2nd in Scrambling and T-68th in Sand Save Percentage. In 2020 the winner Cameron Champ was 19th in Strokes Gained Around-the-Green as he was 1st in scrambling and 11th in Sand Save percentage. In 2019 Kevin Tway was 7th in Strokes Gained Around-the-Green as he also was first in scrambling.
Our third category was Strokes Gained Putting. The greens are a combination of Poa annua and Bent, so we all know it takes a special person to be able to putt well on Poa annua greens. Last year Max Homa ranked 22nd in Strokes Gained Putting. The previous year Stewart Cink ranked 16th in strokes Gained Putting. In 2020, Cameron Champ ranked 28th in Strokes Gained putting, while 2019 champion Kevin Tway was 18th, 2018 winner Brendan Steele was 29th, and in 2017 he was 6th.
Our last category is Par Breakers because to win, you have to make a lot of birdies, along with some eagles. Last year Silverado was 28th in Par Breakers as winner Max Homa was T-1st as he made 24 birdies which were T-1st, and made two eagles. The previous year, Silverado was 43rd in Par Breakers as Stewart Cink was T-6th as he made 23 birdies which he finished T-5th. In 2020 the course played a lot harder as it was 15th in Par Breakers as Cameron Champ was T-4th as he made 21 birdies which also finished T-4th. In 2019 Kevin Tway was T-10th making 19 birdies. Brendan Steele was 5th in Par Breakers in 2018 and T-1st in 2017 when he made 24 birdies.

*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.

*Par Breakers: Combination of birdies and eagles made to show under-par scoring.

Of the 156 players in the field, 96 have stats on the PGA Tour for 2022:

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

Here is a link back to all player stats for the Fortinet

DraftKings tips

*Here are the guys that cost the most on DraftKings this week:

• Hideki Matsuyama – $10,700
• Max Homa – $10,500
• Corey Conners – $10,300
• Sahith Theegala – $10,000
• Maverick McNealy – $9,900
• Taylor Pendrith – $9,800
• Cam Davis – $9,600
• Davis Riley – $9,400
• Tom Hoge – $9,300
• Emiliano Grillo – $9,200

So this is a very strange week since only five top-50 ranked players are in the field.  So DraftKings has populated the top with most of the regular guys that we all know.  But this event is about the new blood that have just gotten their PGA Tour cards for 2023. Of the 50 that got their cards, 48 are playing this week.  So we have to dig down and find of the 48 the best players and make them part of our six players.  So I am going to not take many of the top players on the DraftKings list, instead using a dozen or so of those recent Korn Ferry grads

I do believe that Hideki Matsuyama could win this week, but taking Hideki Matsuyama at $10,700 is a leap of faith.  It’s so much money that it doesn’t leave us much more for other names so I am not taking Hideki, even though he finished T-6th last year and T-3rd in 2014 & ’15.  Matsuyama wasn’t healthy during the playoffs and that is a concern and reason for saying no to him.  Yes I know how many top-tens he had in 2022, I would say he is a sure thing for a top-ten this week, but it makes the rest of your picks hard.  As for Max Homa at $10,500, I have mixed emotions.  Yes he had a great 2022 starting with his Napa win and averages 74.0 DraftKing Points per round, but just don’t think he can repeat himself.  The same with Corey Conners at $10,300, he just hasn’t played great enough of late to warrant that price, especially when you see that in three Silverado starts he hasn’t broken the top-ten.  Now the good points to Conners is how he averages 72.3 DraftKings points per round. Now I like Sahith Theegala at $10,000, yea in two starts at Napa was T-14th in 2020 but I think that after his great 2022 season he will be raring to go and be the Max Homa of 2023.  Also like the fact that in 2022 Theagala averaged making 66.8 DraftKings points per round.  Maverick McNealy at $9,900 is a yes for me, he finished 2nd last year in Napa and I can see him blasting to a great 2023.  I can also see Taylor Pendrith at $9,800 playing well based on how good he ended his 2022 season.  He was T-8th at the BMW Championship and can see him do well this week.  He finished T-2nd at the Rocket Mortgage, Detroit Golf Club is a lot like Silverado.   Also like that in 2022 he averaged 70.2 DraftKings points per event.   I don’t see the appeal of Cam Davis at $9,600.  In three Napa starts his best was T-17th in 2019 and his 2022 season didn’t end well, so take a pass on him this week.  I also don’t see the appeal of Davis Riley at $9,400.  He missed the cut at Napa in his only start and struggled most of the summer, so he is a no for me.  Also don’t understand the high value for Tom Hoge at $9,300.  Has played in Napa seven times but his best finish was T-17th in 2018.  He did make it to East Lake, probably the reason for the high valuation, but he is a no for me.  Emiliano Grillo at $9,200 is also a no for me, sure he won the event in 2016 but has struggled since.  He did finish the season strong, with T-2nd at both the John Deere and 3M Open, he was T-19th in his last 2022 start.

*Players in that $7,500 to $8,900 price range, which ones are worth the money?:

You just have to take Brendan Steele at $8,900.  Of all the players in the field he has won this event twice and never missed a cut at Silverado.  He didn’t play that bad in 2022 so despite being a bit high price wise is ok.  In looking at some of the Korn Ferry Tour grads, like Thomas Detry at $8,600, he is making his first Napa start but think he will be fine.  Also in five PGA starts last year Detry averaged 79.6 DraftKings points per round.  Justin Suh at $8,200 is another Korn Ferry Grad to watch in 2023, he was T-58th in his Silverado debut last year.  Watch Chris Kirk at $7,900, in four starts at the Fortinet was T-8th in 2017.  He also averaged 64.6 DraftKings points per round in 2022.  A player to watch this week is Chez Reavie at $7,600.  In his last 11 starts in the Fortinet he has never missed a cut and was T-3rd in 2021.  He ended 2022 strongly with a win at the Barracuda, he is good value for little money when you consider he averaged 55.1 DraftKings points per round in 2022.  Matt Kuchar at $7,600 is also worth watching, he hasn’t played much in this event, last year was T-36th.  He does make a lot of cuts and in 2022 averaged 65.4 DraftKings points per round.

*Some of the “bargains” this week at the Fortinet Championship

Yes lot’s of bargains from the Korn Ferry grads, first up is Nick Hardy at $7,500 he was solid the last part of 2022 and think he will do fine. Kevin Streelman at $7,500 is worth a look, he was T-3rd at Napa in 2021.  Stewart Cink at $7,400 is a past champion that makes a lot of cuts.  Also watch Rickie Fowler at $7,000, he has never played at Silverado but did well in this event in it’s early years.  He is working hard on his game and has been getting advise from Butch Harman senior, I feel 2023 is going to be his comeback year. Cameron Percy at $6,800 has been solid at Silverado including a T-7th in 2020,

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Fortinet Open:

The Key stat for the winner:

• In all eight years of being played at Silverado, hitting fairways and putting became the keys to playing well.  Silverado had the 2nd hardest fairways to hit in 2022 so hitting it straight is essential.  Also putting was important, on putting average ranks high each year.  So look for that trait in a possible winner this week.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Since the course is still new for a good share of the players, the experience will play a minimal role.  Traditionally tournaments on the PGA Tour that hold events for the first, second and third year, are won by journeymen and players with minimum experience winning.  The last eight winners Max Homa, Stewart Cink, Cameron Champ, Kevin Tway, Sangmoon Bae, Emiliano Grillo, and Brendan Steele fit that bill so expect the unexpected for this week.
• Johnny Miller says the greens are perfect and fast, so good putters should have a field day.
• Scrambling is also very important because it’s not that demanding around the greens at Silverado.  Last year it ranked T-29th hardest, so to win you have to get up and down on those greens you miss.
• Lastly, the trend is for a journeyman pro to win, think that will continue this week.
• Weather is going to be picture perfect but the players are going to hate the winds which will average 11 mph each day with Thursday having the highest.  So look for scores on the high side.