Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2023 Fortinet Championship

2023 Fortinet Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

Fans of the PGA TOUR and regular readers of this column will typically remember the events played between now and Christmas as humdrum affair.

But no more. As the dust settles on Viktor Hovland’s remarkable TOUR Championship and FedEx Cup triumph, those farther down the FedEx standings have some rather pressing business to attend to.

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That would be the new Fall Series, where – quite simply – players that finish lower than 125th in the rankings are toast. Their full playing privileges on the PGA TOUR are taken away for the 2024 season, and they are left hoping that exemptions and invitations come their way. Without naming names here, there’s some famous faces of the sport whose immediate future is in peril.

At the other end of the spectrum, those that perform well in the Fall Series have a chance to play their way into the first few Signature Events next year – big purses, big opportunities.

So now the Fall Swing has taken on meaning and consequence, and the hope is that the golf as a spectacle and as a betting vehicle will improve as a result.

The first of the Fall Series events is the Fortinet Championship, played each year at the Silverado Country Club over in Napa, California. It’s not the most agreeable venue to return after weeks away from competitive golf, with tight fairways that would be easy to miss even when completely ‘match fit’. 

The good news is that the North Course has forgiving rough and receptive greens, so a low fairway percentage can easily be translated into a decent GIR clip of 70% of more.

The North Course is pretty short too at 7,123 yards for its Par 72, with a main requirement of hitting decent approaches from inside the 150-yard mark – be it from the rough or the short stuff. 

Putting well on Poa Annua is also non-negotiable – welcome to the West Coast, where the greens tend to run a little slower and stodgier than the Bermuda and Bentgrass surfaces found elsewhere. Only those with success with the flat stick on Poa Annua surfaces need apply.

Backing bombers seems a fair enough approach in this evident – Stewart Cink, Cameron Champ and Kevin Tway have all had their name etched on the trophy since 2018, but the identity of the winner of the last two editions of this tournament points towards a classier operator altogether.

Max Homa was the back-to-back victor at Silverado in 2021 and 2022, although he needed an almighty helping hand from Danny Willett to make the latter win come true. The Brit simply needed to make birdie at the final hole to end a six-year trophy drought on the PGA TOUR.

But he missed a four-footer for birdie, followed by toeing a five-footer for par wide and therefore handed Homa a victory that even he clearly wasn’t expecting as he waited for Willett to nudge home the winning putt.

What drama will unfold in 2023? Hopefully, any action at the business end will involve one or more of the selections in our Fortinet Championship sleeper shortlist.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Fortinet Championship here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2023-2023)

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