The Procore Championship

The Fortinet Championship

It’s not even two weeks since the 2024 race to crown a Fedex Cup champion wrapped up at East Lake with Scottie Scheffler deservedly taking down the big bucks.

From our point of view while the play off events didn’t bring us any joy the season turned out to be a good one as after a sluggish start we turned things around in May and stayed in a health profit from there on in, finally closing out over 100pts+ in profit.

The highlight of our campaign of course came in May as Davis Riley bagged the Charles Schwab Challenge for us at 200/1 and with further healthy each way returns as well as bagging Davis Thompson’s maiden win at the John Deere it was an excellent summer.

As we know this is a long term game and having banked 435pts profit 20/21 and with three of the four seasons either side of that also profitable we are very healthily placed since the site started at over 600+ points ahead!

So with the dust barely settled it is all systems go once more as we head west to Napa for the newly named Procore Championship for the first event of the Fall series.

With the exception of the addition of the new Black Desert Championship in Utah the events on display will look very familiar with, alongside this weeks event, the regular trips to the Sanderson Farms, The Shriners and the RSM Classic to name but three.

Through this series of events as per last Fall there will be no Fedex Cup points up for grabs with regards to the 2025 season, which will begin fully in Hawaii in January, however the players who finished outside the top 50 will continue to earn points through the Fall with the points accrued offering both opportunity to get in to the first two Signature Events of 2024 at Pebble Beach and Riviera. In addition those who finished outside the top 70 in the Fedex rankings will be playing for a final position on the points list to secure a ranking inside the top 125 and status for 2025. In addition a win in any of the Fall events will be rewarded with the usual perks of 2yrs status and a trip to Augusta and Kapalua.

Those who finished in the top 50 are able to tee it up in any Fall events if they wish as for example defending champion Sahith Theegala, Max Homa and Wyndham Clark are this week but they won’t earn any Fedex Cup points.

The Procore Championship was first staged as The Fry’s Electronics Open in 2007. The following year the event was renamed the Fry’s.com Open.

In 2010 the event then moved from its initial home in Arizona to the CordeValle Club in San Martin, California, before finally arriving at its current home, The Silverado Country Club in Napa, for the 2014-15 season.

The event was then renamed The Safeway Open for the 2016-17 season and remained so for five editions before Fortinet took over the reigns.  This summer though Fortinet ended their deal early with software provider Procore stepping in.

From what I can see though there is no mention of this deal going beyond this year at this stage and this most likely ties in to uncertainty around the future structure of the Fall schedule allowing for ongoing talks between the PGA and the PIF.

With the Presidents Cup only two weeks away the vast majority of the US have chosen to sit this one out with just Theegala, Homa and more surprisingly Clark teeing it up. Meanwhile from the International Team, Correy Conners, Mackenzie Hughes and Min Woo Lee are in attendance.

The market is headed up by defending champion Sahith Theegala and Wyndham Clark who are vying for favouritism. This duo are then followed by Corey Conners, Luke Clanton, Max Homa and Maverick McNealy.

COURSE

Silverado North Course is a par 72 measuring just over 7150yds.

The greens are Bent Grass with Poa Annua.

The course was originally opened in 1955 before being redesigned by Robert Trent Jones Jnr in 1966.

In 2010 the resort was then purchased by a consortium including Johnny Miller.

At this point Miller, who’s long term goal is to attract a major championship to the venue oversaw a renovation/redesign of the course.

Silverado is a classical, tree lined set up with narrow fairways, which are tough to find. The rough historically however has not been overly penal and this making the course fairly ‘gettable’.

This year the players returning to Silverado will find things looking a bit different. While there have been no major changes with regards to redesigns of holes, lengthening etc, the course with a view to making it more ‘fan friendly’ has been re routed.

Holes 1-7 will play the same as will 18 however the remaining holes have been shuffled around with the signature par three 11^th now the 17^th. The final five holes will now run as Par 4 5 4 3 5.

 HISTORY

So let’s firstly take a look at the winners of the event since it moved to Silverado in 2014.

2023 Sahith Theegala

2022 Max Homa

2021 Max Homa

2020 Stewart Cink

2019 Cameron Champ

2018 Kevin Tway

2017 Brendan Steele

2016 Brendan Steele

2015 Emiliano Grillo

2014 Sang Moon Bae

The first thing we should bear in mind when looking at this list is that with the exception of 2019 when the Greenbrier held the honour this event has been the curtain raiser for the PGA Tours new campaign.

The 2020 event as we know was won by the rejuvenated Stewart Cink however when looking at that event we need to remember that due to the impact of Covid 19 there were no fresh faced rookies arriving in Napa that September buoyed from their exploits in the Korn Ferry finals.

Away from that year though we have seen a bunch of rookies making a big impact here over the years with the most notable being Emilliano Grillo who won here in 2015 on the back of winning the Korn Ferry Tour Championship.

Meanwhile in 2022 we saw Taylor Montgomery and Ben An jump straight of the Korn Ferry to post a top five finish here.

From last year though with the Korn Ferry season not yet concluded and rookies not eligible  until 2024 we saw a very different dynamic of seasoned PGA players battling it out as they tried to secure their cards. That said what we saw here as indeed we did in other Fall events is a win for a player in Theegala who having wrapped up his top 50 place had no real pressure on him at all and instead was simply here at a track we knew really suited him on a mission to bag his first tour title.

Taking a closer look now at the winners here and we see that three of the nine winners Steele [twice] and Grillo are renowned for their ball striking prowess from tee to green.

In addition, while this is not necessarily the case for the 2018 winner Kevin Tway as a rule, he did have a great week here off the tee that week gaining more than eight strokes on the field in SGTTG and finishing the week ranked third in that category, whilst 2019 winner Cameron Champ lead the field from tee to green gaining over 11 strokes on the field in that department.

If we then look at 2020 winner Stewart Cink he also did most of his damage from tee to green while Max Homa has ranked first and second in this department over the past two years.

Last year though while Theegala was solid with his iron play ranking 18^th, he did buck the trend slightly doing most of his damage on the greens as he ranked second with the flatstick.

Looking at the nine winners at Silverado though allowing for the two successes for Homa and Steele and the wins for Champ and Theegala we have had six Californian triumphs here.

Whilst as noted above this has been a solid hunting ground for Korn Ferry graduates the winners themselves with the exception of Grillo have tended to triumph here on the back of a fairly humdrum end to their previous campaigns.

Aside from a fifth in the handicap adjusted Tour Championship Homa triumphed in 2022 having not had a top 15 finish since a fifth at the Memorial, while the previous year he had posted nothing better than 25^th since a sixth place at the Memorial. 2020 champion Cink had only posted one top 20 finish in the whole of 2020 prior to his win here while 2019 winner Cameron Champ had struggled for the vast majority of the season since his win almost 12 months prior at the Sanderson Farms.

Back to back champion Brendan Steele ended his previous campaign with four missed cuts in seven starts and nothing better than 24^th place since June when winning for the second time and had finished the previous campaign with a whimper posting nothing better than 17^th place in six starts since early July the year he first tasted victory in the event.

2015 winner Sang Moon Bae had also ended his previous season with some in and out form, which had included a 14^th place at the Wyndham and three missed cuts in his last four starts, however 2018 champion Kevin Tway had made his final eight cuts on tour to at least finish his 17/18 campaign solidly.

Finally to bring us up to date last years winner Theegala had played solidly to finish 13^th and 15^th in the first two play off events, however prior to that he had no notched a top 20 since a fifth at the RBC Heritage way back in April.

All in all then the message seems fairly clear, don’t be too concerned if your fancy here isn’t in great form coming in having ended their previous campaign slowly as it appears to be very much a case of ‘reset-new start’ here.

With current form not being a huge issue the next thing to look at is course form. Bae naturally was getting his first look at the track competitively when he won here as was Grillo the following year. Steele though having grown up in California was 21^st and 17^th here the two years prior to his two victories while Tway was making his second start here having finished 62^nd the previous year.

Champ had finished 25^th in his first start in the event the previous year and in addition as a native of nearby Sacramento he also had decent knowledge of the area, however Cink had missed the cut on his only previous start here.

Homa prior to his first win was 39^th here way back in 2014 but had posted nothing better than 60^th in three visits since. In 2022 though he of course was defending. Again though it would seem previous course form is not imperative. Finally Theegala in addition to being a Californian had very much marked our card here finishing sixth in 2022.

One other line naturally worth looking at though is course form elsewhere in California and particularly at Riviera, a course which several players likened to Silverado when they first got a look at this venue.

Sang Moon Bae had performed well at Riviera prior to winning here including having held the halfway lead and Brendan Steele had made his five previous cuts at Riviera including posting finishes of 14^th and 10^th.

2018 winner Tway has ‘no previous’ at Riviera however the two men he beat in the play-off that year Moore and Snedeker have strong records there and of course Sneds is a California specialist full stop.

Two time champion Homa had been victorious at Riviera earlier in 2021 prior to his first win to well and truly rubber stamp the link, while Theegala also leapt off the page after finishing sixth at Riviera earlier in 2023.

Looking at the winning score we have seen -15 get the job done on three occasions and -18 was the number for Steele in 2016 while -14 was enough to make the play off in 2018 which Tway emerged victorious from.

In 2019 Cameron Champ took victory with a total of -17, Cink triumphed with a total of -21 in 2020. -19 was good enough for Homa to get the job done in 2021 while his total in 2022 was 16- under. Finally in 2023 Theegala triumphed on 21- under.

 WEATHER FORECAST

Looking at the forecast this is certainly a great week to be in Napa with wall to wall sunshine and temperatures around low to mid 80s everyday. Basically the same as we have had here the last two years!

Wind could though be a bit of an issue as all four days show the possibility as I write for gusts of 15-20mph and possibly above.

As I always say though…this could all change!

PICKS

I have gone with five players this week as follows;

MAVERICK MCNEALY –22/1 – 2.5pts e/w - 1/5 odds 1^st 8 - FINISHED MC

This time last year we got our Fall series off to a flyer by siding with a player who was clearly on a mission here to bag their first PGA Tour title in the shape of Sahith Theegala and I am going to look to repeat that narrative this year with Maverick McNealy.

Following a return from injury McNealy has put a really solid 2024 together, which has seen him miss only four cuts and post four top tens, all of, which added up to 53^rd place in the Fedex rankings. A strong year then but having finished so close to the top 50 there will no doubt be an element of ‘what might have been’ in Maverick’s mind, particularly as he made such a great run on the Sunday in Memphis, closing out with a 64 before falling agonisingly just short.

We saw with Sahith last year though how he morphed the frustration of just missing out on a spot at East Lake in to a win here and there is an awful lot in favour with Maverick repeating that trick.

A native of California of course McNealy has enjoyed his time in his home state over the years particularly at Pebble Beach where he has family ties, however more importantly for this week he was runner up here to Max Homa in 2021 having lead through 36 holes and was right in the hunt until a late slip at 17 on Sunday. Furthermore despite some patchy results on other visits here McNealy has talked about how he feels hugely comfortable in the area and on the course.

At 53^rd then in the Fedex standings McNealy’s goals for the Fall will be two fold, firstly to lock up a place in the ‘next 10’, which gets him in to the Signature Events in 2025 at Riviera and his beloved Pebble Beach and secondly of course to get that first win and bag a place at Augusta.

I’ll take the Stanford star to step up here then back on Californian soil and bag his first tour title in comfortable surroundings.

PATRICK RODGERS -  40/1 –1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 8 - FINISHED 37th

Sticking with the California and indeed Stanford theme and next up its back to the well with Partick Rodgers.

I make no excuses for persevering with Rodgers in the belief that his time will come, however for those who are beginning to doubt me on this I will point out that we sided with Patrick five times in the 2024 main campaign and on two of those occasions in Mexico and at the Barracuda he rewarded us with place returns. I can safely say then that Patrick has been a friend to us this year!

Anyway, enough looking back, what of this week for Rodgers?

Well obviously we have the California link to start with and we can add in the fact that Patrick has made seven of nine cuts here bagging two top six finishes along the way, furthermore Patrick has a solid record at Riviera with two top 15 finishes over recent years.

Looking at Patrick’s 2024 and it was a mixed bag with the two big finishes I noted earlier, along with a fifth place at Hilton Head and ninth at Torrey Pines to his name. More recently though he has been solid rather than spectacular making all his cuts since the Memorial but notching just one top five at the Barracuda over the summer. Still though it is clear he has been on the verge of some really good stuff without quite putting all four rounds together in the big events.

Rodgers comes in to this week in 54^th in the Fedex standings with all to play for with regards to the ‘next ten’. I expect we will see a lot of him this Fall then and I can see him coming out of the gates quickly this week and making a big push for that long overdue first tour title.

HARRIS ENGLISH – 40/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 8 - FINISHED MC

Next up for me is Harrish English.

After a strong start to 2024, which saw Harris post five top 20s up to and including The Players the 35yr old went off the boil through the summer managing only one further top 20 the rest of the way, which came at Valhalla in the PGA. Finally the Georgia man’s season petered out at the Fedex St Jude where, after having withdrawn at the 11^th hour the previous week at the Wyndham with a back issue, he finished 61^st out of 70.

Hardly inspiring stuff then however he was solid over the opening three days in Memphis posting 68 68 and 70 before finishing poorly on Sunday with a 76. One would assume though that allowing for his first three days work the back issue had cleared up.

Even so though there is no denying it was a sluggish summer for Harris and I will admit therefore I am taking a chance here that he has ‘reset’ over the past four weeks and is now looking to push on in the Fall.

Assuming this is the case then there is a lot to like about English’s profile here this week. Firstly on the only occasion Harris has teed it up here in the past four years he finished ninth in 2022, his only top 25 finish of that Fall and a result, which came on the heels of a 2022 beset by injury and where he had missed his previous three cuts to end his 21/22 campaign. Furthermore if we then look at Harris’ correlating record at Riviera and we see he has finished 12^th in 2023 and seventh this year, his best result of the 2024 season.

One look at English’s stats this year tells us where the problems have been as he ranks 130^th in Approach Play, however last time out at the Fedex St Jude there were actually positive signs on this front as on the first and third days he ranked in the top 15 in approach.

For an East Coast native English has a surprisingly strong record on the West Coast as, as well showing a  for Riviera, he has also performed strongly at Torrey Pines over the years notably when third in the US Open in 2021 to Jon Rahm.

Heading back out West this week then and with plenty to play for at 57^th in the Fedex I’m happy to chance Harris at decent each way odds at a course that clearly suits his eye.

ADAM SVENSSON – 50/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 8 - FINISHED 13th

Another player who catches my eye this week is Adam Svensson.

As a Canadian Svensson would have been hoping to have a big year in 2024 to make the Presidents Cup team on home soil, however he will I am sure be the first to admit that despite performing solidly through most of the campaign he never did enough to be in serious consideration of a pick. Instead then Adam will now turn his attention to looking to improve on his end of main season ranking of 76^th.

Looking at Adam’s campaign and behind his seasons best effort of seventh which came last time out at the Wyndham his other big week came at Riviera where he was tenth. Add that to his ninth at Riviera on debut the year before and we have a couple really notable efforts. Furthermore a look at Adam’s record at Silverado tells us that after a couple solid showings on his first two visits he was 12^th here on his last start in the event in 2022.

The club that has really held Adam back this year is the putter for which he is ranked 151^st on the season, however last time out at the Wyndham the flat stick sparked to life for him as he ranked third on the greens. Granted this week we are on the West Coast on very different surfaces to those he encountered at Sedgefield however with his solid record on this course and at Riviera I am hopeful he can bring that improvement on the dance floor with him.

With some wind in the forecast this week the Canadian’s strong record in blustery conditions could also stand him in good stead and I am keen to have him onside.

CAMERON CHAMP – 90/1 - 1pt E/W – 1/5 odds 1^st 8 - FINISHED MC

Finally this week I will wrap things up by chancing Cameron Champ.

I am not going to pretend to remotely understand what goes on in the mindset of the enigma that is Cameron but the fact that a player who is as talented as he is, is currently languishes at 162^nd in the Fedex standings heading in to the Fall, and on the cusp of losing his card, is incredulous.

A three time winner on the PGA Tour including here at Silverado five years ago, on his day Champ looks like a top ten player in the world. For whatever reason though he has been unable to unlock the key to harnessing his talent with any consistency on tour and year in year out ‘goes missing’ for long periods of time.

What we have learnt with Champ though is when he starts to show a flicker of form he can be a man to keep any eye on and this was most definitely the case when we were on him for his last win at the 3M Open in 2021, which followed an eye catching 11^th at the John Deere.

Back to this year then and it has been another horrific season for Cameron as prior to recently he had nothing better than a 24^th in Mexico to his name with most weeks resulting in a weekend off.

After making the cut at the Barracuda though Cameron produced by far his best showing of the year at the 3M finishing 12^th. As interestingly he then went on to post a 45^th place finish at the Wyndham the following week. Not a great result obviously but prior to that week he had missed the cut on all three previous visits to Sedgefield CC and it is not a track, which you would expect to fit his game. Certainly a positive week then.

A winner here before as noted, Cameron hails from nearby Sacramento so he ticks the Californian link box that so often shows itself in this event.

With the predicament he is in then with regards to his tour status mid division finishes are not going to help much and Cam will know he needs a really big Fall series. On the back of his recent uptick then I’ll take him this week to show his class once more and pounce in his home state.