2022 Fortinet Championship – Silverado (North) Resort & Spa – Course Preview

Surrounded by the golden hills of the Napa Valley, the 2022-2023 PGA Tour begins out west with the Fortinet Championship. One of the rising stars on Tour, California native, Max Homa returns to defend his title from last season. Played on the North course at the 1,200-acre property known as the Silverado Resort and Spa, this will be the ninth consecutive year for the resort to host this event.

The North course at Silverado is one of the shortest on Tour and features narrow tree-lined fairways, few hazards, non-penal rough, and tricky sloping greens. It is a very straightforward and scoreable course with a winning score that has averaged 17-under par since 2014.

This opening event also signals the beginning of another FedExCup season. Thankfully, this will be the last ever start to a PGA Tour season in the month of September. After a long stretch of incorporating a wraparound calendar schedule, the Tour will implement a January-to-August season starting in 2024. This first event features a full 156-player field with the typical cut-line after Friday’s round.

For casual observers, there will be plenty of unfamiliar names that will be competing in this event. Many Korn Ferry Tour graduates will be making their debut as full PGA Tour members. Among the new members, Justin Suh is the most familiar name as he topped the combined Points List and will be fully exempt this season. While the field lacks star power, these fall events are an important week for everyone who is trying to rack up FedExCup points as only the top 70 golfers (instead of the typical 130) will earn their way into next year’s FedExCup Playoffs.

Only eight of the top 70 players in the world will tee it up at Silverado starting on Thursday. Along with Homa, the field is headlined by Hideki Matsuyama, Corey Conners, Tom Hoge, Sahith Theegala, Cameron Davis, Davis Riley, and Alex Noren. With the Presidents Cup taking place next week, the International team will be well-represented with Matsuyama, Conners, Davis, and Taylor Pendrith all playing this week.

Course History

Having been a large Napa Valley ranch in the post-Second World War years, the original Silverado Country Club opened in 1955. 11 years later in 1966, famed golf architect Robert Trent Jones was called in to modernize the original course and also build a second one. By 1967, the “new” South course opened alongside the renovated North course.

From 1968 to 1976 the North course hosted a full-fledged PGA Tour event called the Kaiser International Open. And then from 1977 to 1980, it played host to a Champions Tour event. Fast forward to 2010 when two-time major winner, Johnny Miller bought the entire resort. In 2011, he redesigned both courses with the goal of landing a U.S. Open or PGA Championship, but he ended up settling for a new PGA Tour event called the Frys.com Open which began play in 2014. In 2016, it was changed to the Safeway Open. And then last year, the tournament began its new sponsorship with Fortinet.

The Course

Located in the heart of California’s Napa Valley wine country, Silverado is a classical, tree-lined resort-style course with a setup that is quite scoreable. The birdie to bogey ratio of 1.44 is one the highest on Tour. And over the past five events here, the course ranks as the 17th easiest annual course playing an average of 0.93 strokes under par.

Although there is some rolling terrain and a couple of holes with elevation changes, it is predominately a flat course. With only two holes with water hazards in play (7th fewest) and only 50 bunkers (6th fewest) on the course, there just aren’t that many ways for golfers to score bogey or worse. The narrow tree-lined fairways along with some severe undulations on several of the greens are about the only defense that Silverado can mount.