Fortinet Championship PGA DFS Stats Preview: Course Fits, GPP Picks, and Values

After an agonizing three-week break, the 2022-2023 PGA TOUR season kicks off in Napa Valley at the Silverado Resort and Spa to play the Fortinet Championship.

The event was previously called the Safeway Open, but the tournament sponsor changed to Fortinet last year, taken over as the tournament’s sponsor, and will do so for the next five years. Although the name has changed multiple times, Silverado’s North Course has been featured on the PGA TOUR since 1968.

The course is a par 72, measuring at 7,166 yards. Silverado features Poa annua greens, which can be tricky, especially as the surface becomes bumpier in the afternoon. The tree-lined fairways aren’t easy to hit, but the rough shouldn’t be exceedingly penal. Shorter hitters are in play on this relatively short course, and accuracy will be at a premium.

The field will consist of 156 players. Being the swing season, the field for this event is usually relatively weak. However, there are some intriguing names in the field, including Hideki Matsuyama, Max Homa, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, Cameron Champ, Corey Conners, Si Woo Kim, and Matt Kuchar.

For contests on DraftKings, I will be breaking down the key stats (past 24 rounds) and selecting golfers from different price tiers to provide flexibility for a DFS lineup.

And if you missed it, we added two new metrics in our models — Perfect% and SimLeverage. You can find an explainer on those metrics here.

The cliff notes version is that you can use SimLeverage to quickly find leverage plays in tournaments, while Perfect% is excellent for finding the best price-considered plays for cash games.

For large-field tournaments, you can utilize our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 150 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your lineups.

This analysis may reference Strokes Gained, a set of proprietary metrics generated by the PGA TOUR using millions of data points to calculate how many shots, on average, it takes a player to get the ball in the hole from every distance and situation.

Strokes Gained is now available in the FantasyLabs PGA Models.

Strokes Gained: Approach

Historically, one of the North Course’s defenses will be tightly tucked pin placement, so effective shot-shaping and a higher ball flight may be an advantage this week. In order to find success, players need to hit the correct level of the sloping Poa annua greens.

High-end target: Corey Conners— $10,300 (4th Strokes Gained: Approach)
Mid-range target: Brendan Steele— $8,900 (1st Strokes Gained: Approach)
Value target: Mark Hubbard— $7,300 (3rd Strokes Gained: Approach)

Good Drives Gained

Hitting fairways in regulation at Silverado is more difficult than the TOUR average, as players have done so in the past at a rate of only 52.2%. While the rough isn’t extremely long here, controlling spin out of the thick grass is much more difficult than doing so from the fairway. In order to find success, players need to hit the correct level of the sloping Poa annua greens.

The top eight players on the leaderboard all had a positive week in “Good Drives Gained. The winner, Max Homa, was +3.3 in the category, and Mito Pereira, who finished third, was +8.3.

High-end target: Corey Conners $10,300 (1st Good Drives Gained)
Mid-range target: Chez Reavie— $7,600 (2nd Good Drives Gained)
Value target: Doug Ghim— $6,600 (6th Good Drives Gained)

Strokes Gained: Putting (Poa Annua)

Poa annua greens on the West Coast can be quite difficult for golfers to adjust to if they don’t have much experience on the surface.

Prior to the 2019 Safeway Open, Phil Mickelson talked about how the type of putting surface is a major factor:

“I think a lot of guys struggle with the Poa annua greens, which is a grass that I grew up playing, so I’m very comfortable on the greens. When you grow up and spend most of your time back east in Florida on the Bermuda, this is a very awkward surface to putt on. The color looks different — it’s hard to sometimes read. But when you’re used to it, I don’t know of much better surfaces than these right here.”

This week it is important to look for the golfers who historically excel on Poa annua.

High-end target: Max Homa— $10,500 (11th in Strokes Gained: Putting (Poa Annua)
Mid-range target: Matt Kuchar— $7,600 (1st in Strokes Gained: Putting (Poa Annua)
Value target: Mark Hubbard— $7,300 (4th in Strokes Gained: Putting (Poa Annua)

Par 4: 450-500

There are six par 4s at Silverado that are between 400 and 450 yards. It will be important to target players who excel at playing these holes. With the par 5s being fairly short and reachable, the par 4 scoring may prove to be the bigger difference-maker.

High-end target: Corey Conners— $10,300 (4th Par 4: 450-500)
Mid-range target: Andrew Putnam— $7,700 (2nd Par 4: 450-500)
Value target: Tyler Duncan— $7,000 (1st Par 4: 450-500)

Birdie or Better: Gained

With scores at Silverado potentially approaching the 20-under par range, making plenty of birdies will be a requirement in order to contend this week.

High-end target: Cameron Davis— $9,600 (2nd Birdie or Better: Gained)
Mid-range target: Taylor Moore— $7,600 (1st Birdie or Better: Gained)
Value target: John Huh— $7,000— (10th Birdie or Better: Gained)

Get a 100% Deposit Match up to $250!

Your deposit will be fully matched

New users only

GET $250 FREE