Congratulations to Victor Hovland on winning the 2023 Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup Title.  He did basically everything this season except win a major which I think is only a matter of time. We are still waiting for the announcement of the 2023 PGA Player of the Year and there’s a lot of ways you could go from Scottie Scheffler to Jon Rahm to Viktor Hovland to Rory McIlory, all would be deserving. If I was going to pick, I’d give it to Scottie Scheffler for the second straight season. I know he did not win a major but if you look at how ridiculously consistent he was all season, it’s hard to ignore and he also dominated basically every statistical category except putting. I would but mad though if any of those players took it home. 

We begin a new PGA Tour season this weekend with a lot of unanswered questions. The PGA and LIV Tours are supposed to be merging but we have not heard anything about how that will look. So, we are basically in a wait and see. Onto the golf going on this weekend..        

The Fortinet Championship has been the first event of the PGA Tour season for about a decade now. The fall portion of the PGA Tour schedule has been reduced from years past. We have this weekend’s event in Napa, then the Ryder Cup at the end of September followed by the Sanderson Farms in the first weekend in October.

This is the first event of the 2023-2024 PGA Tour season which means the field will not be top tier. We do have Justin Thomas, Webb Simpson, Sahith Theegala, Kevin Kisner, Cam Davis, Matt Kuchar, and more. We will get our first look at the new Korn Ferry Tour graduates at this event. A few names to keep your eye on are Eric Cole, Samuel Stevens, Carson Young, Kevin Yu and Tano Goya. It should be a fun season.

The tournament is played at Silverado Country Club in Napa, California.  It is a relatively short course by PGA Tour standards at 7,203 yards and a par 72.  It is tree lined with tough bunker locations, big greens and a little bit of water as well.  Players must stay dry this week.

Max Homa is the two-time defending champ, Stewart Cink won this event in 2020, Brandon Steele has won on this course twice, and Cameron Champ took it down in 2019. One thing all of these golfers have in common? Great drivers of the golf ball. Along with the driver, you want to see good approach numbers and players who can avoid the big number. While putting is always at a premium on the PGA Tour, this week will not be a challenge especially with these big greens. These players will be pin hunting all weekend. Cink won this event at 21-under par but Homa won it at 19 and 16 under over the last two years. I think the winner will come in around 18 under this weekend. 

We’re in Napa Valley this weekend, the weather looks absolutely perfect as you would expect.  We will see temperatures in the upper 70s with partly cloudy skies throughout the weekend.  These players will compete with winds tickling double digits but nothing they can’t handle.     

Good luck this weekend!

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