Flag Hunting: PGA Betting Picks - Fortinet Championship

Just three weeks after crowning our 2023 FedEx Cup Champion, the PGA Tour is back to start its race for the 2024 Season-Long title. The “Swing Season,” will be taking on a bit of a different role in 2024, as instead of being an optional, uncorrelated set of events for players to accrue FedEx Cup points for a playoff charge, this year’s fall swing will be a tryout for the Tour’s preeminent “in-betweeners.”

For players unable to break into the Top 50 of last month’s playoffs, the seven events on the docket from Napa Valley, California in September, to Sea Island, Georgia in November will provide a potential launching pad into next season’s “Signature Events.” For names like Justin Thomas, Shane Lowry, Adam Scott, and Billy Horschel (all of whom currently sit outside the top 70 of the year-end standings), the thought of missing out on these opportunities would be a huge blow to their potential 2024 ambitions. 

For golf bettors, this new format will almost certainly ensure the presence of star power you’d never expect to see playing in October-November, and with that, the emergence of many other potential values farther down the odds board. The fall swing has always been the breeding ground for breakthrough stars on the PGA Tour, and even with the elevated nature of some of these incoming fields, I don’t expect that to change in 2023. We’ll get started at a venue that has seen seven of its last nine champions close at odds greater than 50-1 on the closing line - here’s everything you need to know about Silverado Resort and the 2023 Fortinet Championship!

The Golf Course

Silverado Resort and Spa (North Course) - Par 72; 7,091 yards

Keeping with the general ethos of the swing season, Silverado isn’t exactly going to put too many impediments in front of these guys this week. However, one of the defining features of this venue is its exceptionally narrow fairways. At just 27 yards wide on average, Silverado features the second narrowest landing areas on Tour, and in conjunction with the generally firmer turf conditions in Northern California, we’ve seen the historical driving accuracy percentage around Silverado sit at just 51.8%.

While the driving accuracy here is substantially below the Tour Average (52% vs 62%), the GIR % sits slightly above the average tour stop (68% vs 66%). Some of that has to do with the shortish nature of this course and the wedges these guys will be routinely hitting into greens, but it also speaks to the ineffectual nature of this rough. 

In 2011, Silverado had its infamous kikuyu rough removed in favor of a much more predictable blend of Rye grass & Kentucky Bluegrass. With the length only grown up to 2-3” at its longest, this rough is some of the easiest to play from on Tour - giving up the 4th most Birdies or Better from off the fairway.

This lack of encumbrance to wayward misses means players like Cameron Champ and Kevin Tway have had no trouble overpowering the narrow confines of Napa Valley, and in fact, 5 of the last 7 champions also ranked inside the top 15 in driving distance that week.

Now, before we go filtering entirely by Driving Distance in your modeling, I’d also like to point out that driving in general has been a below-average stat in terms of predictiveness on Fortinet leaderboards. 

Adam Hadwin came just one shot short of Cam Champ in 2020 whilst losing strokes off the tee. Marc Leishman came fourth in 2022 losing 2.3 shots with his driver (67th out of the 70 players who made the cut). And last year's leaderboard was flooded with the likes of Danny Willett, Taylor Montgomery, and Justin Lower: none of whom would be considered prolific drivers of the ball.

The generosity of Silverado’s rough certainly opens the door for bomb-and-gouge strategies to be employed, but the data tells us this tournament is far from won and lost off the tee. In fact, I’d expect a bulk of the critical strokes this week to be gained with finesse as opposed to power.

This “finesse” range that I speak of starts with the second shot at Silverado. With 8 of the 10 Par 4’s here measuring under 425 yards (and none measuring over 460), effective wedge play will be paramount when attempting to project players capable of creating birdie chances on these holes. Over 50% of historical approach shots have come from inside of 150 yards, and so these corresponding proximity ranges will be essential in my modeling process. 

Simply-hit greens and lower scoring conditions mean a below-average weight on around the green play, while emphasis on putting will be ramped up to 100 (get used to these two trends over the next few months). Here at Silverado, only 2 players since 2020 have managed to finish inside the Top 10 whilst rating out negative SG: Putting for the week.

One was Nick Taylor, who happened to gain 5.6 shots ARG (i.e. an anomaly), and the other was Hideki Matsuyama (one of the best ball-strikers in the world at the time). Very few players in this field possess that sort of upside within their range of outcomes, and Taylor/Hideki each only managed 6th place finishes for their trouble. 

As fun as it is to chase the outliers, the nearly ten-year data set we have here in Napa Valley provides a pretty lock-and-key solution: If you want to contend around Silverado this week, the most effective strategy will be with solid wedge play and a lights-out putter.

Key Stats Roundup: 

• Recent Approach Form, Long-term Wedge Proximities (<150 yards), Special emphasis on recent splits from wedge-intensive venues like TPC Deere Run, TPC River Highlands, Detroit GC, etc.
• Long-term Poa annua putting splits + recent momentum on the greens (SG: Putting last 24-36 rounds)
• Above average weight on driving distance, although driving as a whole feels like a devalued statistic this week
• Proficiency in easier scoring conditions, Par 5 Scoring, Bonus points for a California connection (5 of the last 7 winners here have hailed from The Golden State)

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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

Fortinet Championship Betting Card

Eric Cole (35-1)

I didn't think we'd get a number in the 30s for the 2023 ROY frontrunner, but in a field devoid of premier skillsets, Cole's combination of elite approach play and one of the hottest putters on the planet makes for an enticing proposition in Napa this week.

Cole ranks 1st in SG: Putting in this field over the last six months, 7th in SG: Approach, 3rd in Birdie Chances Created, and 1st in Birdie or Better %. Cole's statistical Achilles heel has always been with the driver, but as we saw on last year's leaderboard, Silverado isn't exactly the most penalizing course for sub-par tee shots (4 of the Top 11 were below field average in Driving Accuracy; 6 of those 11 finished below average in Driving Distance).

It's been nearly four months since Cole missed a cut on the PGA Tour, and he's coming off a mighty impressive playoff run for a guy who was virtually unknown six months ago (T31, T25 in Memphis/Chicago). If he's dead set on capping his ROY campaign with a trip to victory lane, the lackluster fields of the fall swing should provide the perfect hunting ground.

Brendon Todd (40-1)

Continuing the trend of unremarkable drivers of the ball who excel at gaining strokes <150 yards, Brendon Todd is about as solid as they come when you combine wedge play and putting acumen. Todd ranks 13th in my weighted proximity model, 25th long-term Poa Annua Putting, and 1st in Birdie or Better % from <150 yards. 

His recent results back up these pronounced strengths, as Todd recorded Top 10s at three similarly short courses earlier in the year (Sedgefield, Deere Run, Pebble Beach), and had the best approach week of his year to date at the Travelers Championship back in June (+4.2 Strokes Gained).

Todd also recorded a 9th place finish here in 2022 (gaining 5.4 strokes on Approach in the process), and has finished 22nd and 26th in two of his other three starts at Silverado (gaining 5 strokes putting in 2021 and 4.5 strokes on APP in 2015). 

It’s been nearly four years since Todd has found the winner's circle on Tour, but both of his back-to-back wins in 2019 came on Short, wedge-intensive, courses in the fall swing (Bermuda and Mayakoba). We’ve begun to see the ceiling a bit more frequently from Todd towards the latter half of 2023, and Silverado is the perfect venue to keep that momentum going.

Akshay Bhatia (50-1)

For as long as he’s been in our collective conscience, it’s hard to believe Akshay Bhatia is still just 21 years old. 2023 has already been a big year for the former No. 1 World Junior, as Akshay recorded a 2nd in Puerto Rico and a 4th in Mexico before capturing his first PGA Tour title at the Barracuda Championship in July. 

He’s steadily tallied victories at every step up the professional ranks: first claiming a 2022 Korn Ferry win in the Bahamas, then an alternate field win on the PGA Tour in 2023. Perhaps 2024 is the year he steps up to win a full-field event on the big stage. The fall swing should make for a comfortable setting for that next step, as Bhatia will ultimately be dueling with many of the same names he beat in Tahoe just two months ago. 

Akshay already possesses one top result here in Napa, as he finished 9th here as an 18 y/o in 2020, and from a ball-striking perspective, it’s difficult to find many players with similar upside to Bhatia in this price range. Akshay rates out as both a top 15 driver of the ball and a top 20 iron player in this field over the last four months, and although it has been over three years since he’s played here at Silverado, the 3 strokes he gained on the greens in 2020 still sits as the second best putting week of his career. 

He also happened to gain two strokes on these greens in an MC on debut in 2019, making this the only venue in his short career in which he’s gained over 1 stroke putting on multiple occasions. If there is truly something to this familiarity around these tricky poa annua complexes, he’s certainly got the tee-to-green chops to ride a hot putter into victory lane.

Doug Ghim (55-1)

If you’re in the market for an under-the-radar ball-striker this week, look no further than Texas-alum Doug Ghim. In fact, under-the-radar might be doing the former Longhorn a disservice, as when you combine driving and iron play over the last four months, nobody in this field can match Ghim’s per-round splits. Ghim ranks 3rd in this field in Total Driving, 3rd in SG: APP, 5th in Birdie Chances Created, and 3rd in Birdie or Better %.

Interestingly, Ghim has also gained strokes with his flat stick in five of his last six starts, and he’s now set up to carry that momentum into what has historically been his most favored putting surface - eight of the twenty best-putting weeks of Ghim’s career have come in California.

This is perhaps the best-extended run of form we’ve seen out of Doug Ghim since his breakout start to the 2021 season. He happened to finish 14th here at Silverado in that stretch, and in a field devoid of elite skillsets, Ghim’s recent tee-to-green splits should have him riding as sky-high as anyone.

Chez Reavie (60-1)

If I’m not mistaken, this year makes the third season in a row I’ve managed to tout Chez Reavie in Napa Valley, but 2023 is almost certainly the best spot we’ve seen Chez’s game in in any of those times. Reavie has been an absolute course horse here at Silverado: registering five Top 30s and just one missed cut in nine starts in Napa. He’s gained a total of 33.6 shots on Approach over 34 recorded rounds and has yet to lose strokes from tee-to-green in any individual week.

More recently, Reavie has put together one of the more impressive runs of iron play on Tour - gaining over 5 shots on approach per tournament since the start of June and recording 5 Top 35 finishes in the process. Perhaps in-coincidentally, many of these venues model similarly to Silverado (short, wedge-intensive, easy scoring conditions), and with Reavie’s familiarity around this venue, the Fortinet seems as good a spot as any to cash in this stellar recent form with a victory.

Peter Kuest (90-1)

Of all the bombers likely garner attention due to Cam Champ/Kevin Tway’s recent triumphs in Napa, it is BYU product Peter Kuest that captures my attention most. Kuest made his name in these wedge-intensive birdie parties last summer (17th at John Deere, 4th at Rocket Mortgage, 14th at Craig Ranch), and unlike the 2023 versions of Cam Champ, Taylor Pendrith, etc., Kuest actually gives bettors a well-rounded skillset to lean on rather than just relying on the driver to do all of the heavy lifting. 

Kuest ranks 25th in Birdie Chances Created, 8th in Birdie or Better %, and 9th in SG: Putting over his last 26 rounds, and notably, he’s raised those baselines further on the Tour’s most recent corollary courses to Silverado:

• +4.8 SG: APP @ Rocket Mortgage
• +2.6 SG: APP @ John Deere
• +2.6 at Barbasol

The 25-year-old has already established himself as one of the Tour’s premier birdie-makers, and he’s even got some Fresno roots to lean into the California narrative. These swing season shootouts should suit the kid well, and I’ll happily take the chance at prices bordering on triple digits.

Best of luck guys, and Happy Hunting!

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