Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2023 Fortinet Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2023 Fortinet Championship  

Fortinet Championship Fantasy Preview

It’s not how you start that counts but how you finish: Viktor Hovland enjoying the full fruit of that concept by clinching the FedEx Cup after winning the TOUR Championship.

The Norwegian had little more than an outside chance heading into the playoffs, but he parlayed victory at the BMW Championship with a from-behind win at East Lake, taking advantage of more putting woes for Scottie Scheffler to take down the season’s top prize. 

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Seemingly gone are Hovland’s previous chipping woes, and given his outstanding ball-striking and feel on the greens he now resembles something like the complete player – he will surely have world number one status in mind for 2024. 

As for Scheffler, what should have been an all-time season up there with anything ever seen petered out into catastrophe. He shelled his automatic two-shot lead at the TOUR Championship and ended up finishing some 16 shots adrift of Hovland. 

He ended the campaign by losing strokes to the field putting in seven of his last nine events played, so while his contemporaries are putting their feet up this autumn, you suspect Scheffler will be trying desperately to find a solution to his flat stick woes.

Which brings us nicely to the Fall Series, the PGA TOUR’s new initiative to introduce some jeopardy to what is, traditionally, the quietest time of the year. Starting with the Fortinet Championship this week, and ending with the RSM Classic in November, the players ranked 71st and above in the FedEx Cup standings are effectively playing for their futures.

There’s places up for grabs in next year’s Signature Events, the big purse tournaments that the PGA TOUR have designated in a bid to compete financially with LIV Golf. But perhaps more than that, those that finish inside the top 125 will be guaranteed their playing privileges for 2024….finish outside that number, and the only chance you have to play on TOUR next year is exemptions and invitations.

With former major champions and some big characters in world golf fighting for their careers at the top level, suddenly the Fortinet Championship became a whole bunch more interesting….

Last Event’s Fantasy Results

The last event we saw was the TOUR Championship – and what a playoff run it has been for our fantasy team! 

The Hovland, Fleetwood, Clark picks really added fuel onto our cash fire that week and it was the perfect recipe to go Winner-Winner in the last two events before closing out the season!

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2023 Fortinet Championship Field

It’s Homa sweet Homa this week – Max looking to become that rarest of beasts; a back-to-back-to-back champion on the PGA TOUR.

The Fortinet ambassador will be looking for a three-peat in this event, while Justin Thomas will be hoping to find some kind of form ahead of his controversial selection in the Ryder Cup team. For the likes of Sahith Theegala, a maiden PGA TOUR title is very much the aim of the game this week, while you suspect that opportunity could knock on the door of fellow maidens Stephan Jaeger, Eric Cole and BeauHossler if all goes to plan. Cameron Champ, Stewart Cink and Kevin Tway are amongst the formerevent winners in the field

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This Week’s Course Preview

The players will be dusting the cobwebs off their clubs on the North Course at Silverado Country Club in Napa, California this week.

Although winning scores tend to be low here, the layout is perhaps less forgiving than you might otherwise think – the tight fairways are particularly difficult to find, so there will be plenty of scrambling and approach play from the rough stuff this week.

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Thankfully for them, the rough is on the lenient side and so it’s not uncommon for many to go from 45% driving accuracy to 70% GIR – a sure sign of manageable rough and receptive greens. 

At 7,123 yards for Par 72, the North Course is on the short side and perhaps explains why a rollcall of bombers – from Cameron Champ to Stewart Cink and Kevin Tway – have won here. But past leaderboards confirm that those who take a more circumspect approach cannot be ruled out either.

The greens are Poa Annua, which of course can be a difference-maker given that this is not everyone’s favorite surface, and given the relative ease of tee-to-green action on the North Course, putting can be vital in this event.

You probably don’t need us to tell you that the four Par 5s are the easiest scoring holes on the real estate – the eighteenth serving up the lowest scoring average of all in 2022, while a small handful of Par 4s at just a shade over 400 yards also provide birdie opportunities.

Mind you, the North Course isn’t a complete pushover, with some challenging Par 3s and the Par 4 thirteenth which had a birdie-to-bogey ratio of around 1:2.5 last year.

Weather Forecast for Napa, CA

It’s as typically Californian a week as you’d expect.

The sun is out and temperatures are up – 80 degrees on Thursday and Friday being the pick of the bunch. There’s minimal chance of rain (famous last words!), while wind speeds of
around 11mph can be considered a mild inconvenience rather than something for the players to be concerned about.

NAPA WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from the Fortinet Championship

Although he kindly opened the door of opportunity with a Saturday round of 72, Max Homa quickly closed it with an imperious final 18 holes to become a back-to-back winner on the PGA TOUR – albeit courtesy of a huge helping hand from Danny Willett.

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Homa, the 2021 Fortinet champion, picked up where he left off with opening rounds of 65 and 67 at Silverado.

Others were in the hunt, including Byeong Hun An and Sahith Theegala, although Homa’s main competition would ultimately come from Danny Willett.

The former Masters champion followed a second round of 64 with a 72 of his own on the Saturday, meaning that he and Homa were locked together on -12 heading into the final round behind the leader Justin Lower.

As the pair teed off on the final hole, Willett held a one-shot advantage – before one of the craziest finishes of the 2022/23 season unfolded.

Homa chipped in from the rough for a birdie, which was unexpected but unlikely to make a huge difference with Willett standing over a comfortable 4ft birdie putt of his own to win.

The Brit, somehow, missed his chance to claim the victory, before missing an equally easy chance for par that would have forced the playoff – three-putting from inside 4ft was the most extraordinary way to kick off the new season….not that Homa cared. 

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the Fortinet Championship this Week

So off we go then: the return of PGA TOUR golf and some funky fields, if this new Fall Series format is to be believed.
Tread carefully given that the players have had weeks off from swinging their clubs competitively, but look to take advantage nonetheless n these two prime contests:

• PGA TOUR $20K Birdie: Variance abounds in the Fortinet Championship, with rusty players finding themselves in the rough often while trying to make putts on bumpy Poa greens. So you’ll want multiple lineups in play – you can field a maximum of 20 in this contest at $3 per turn.
• PGA TOUR $100K: Drive the Green: Discretion is the better part of valor at the Fortinet Championship, so you’ll want to draft a handful of different lineups to spread risk. This contest, at $5 a go, affords that opportunity while delivering a handsome $25k top prize.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

With the names of Champ, Cink and Tway etched onto the trophy, you might be ready to call in the bomb squad this week. But the North Course is somewhat more subtle than that.

Length is an advantage, because if the entire field is hitting 50% or more of their shots out of the rough, you want to be as close as possible to the green to maximize your chances of knocking your approach to within comfortable putting range, right?

Perhaps the identity of the most recent Fortinet runners-up is just as instructive as the winners. Willett, Harry Higgs and Maverick McNealy are not elite tee-to-green ball-strikers – Willett not so much these days, at least, so there has to be a story there. On last year’s leaderboard, just two of the first 12 players home ranked top for SG: Approach, whereas five did for SG: Around-the-Green and three for SG: Putting.

So scrambling and short game are key – confirmed by the likes of Champ and Cink in the winner’s enclosure, plus short-range approach play from the rough. 

And a quick word about Poa Annua greens. There’s no doubt that this is one of the most idiosyncratic surfaces in golf, with some loving it and some not due to its generally slow-paced nature.

Fire up the leaderboards of recent editions of the Fortinet and you will note that the players involved have often performed well at Riviera (Genesis Invitational) and Torrey Pines (Farmers Insurance Open). Visually, there’s not much linking those layouts with the North Course, other than one thing at least – they’re all laid with Poa Annua greens.

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Fortinet Championship   

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Fantasy Golf Predictions Last Season (2022-2023)

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