PGA Golf Tips at $41 and $54: Fortinet Championship Preview

The PGA Tour opens the 2022-23 season with the first of several stop-offs in California for the Fortinet Championship.

Many of you will remember this event from a couple of years back, when 150/1 Cameron Champ landed the prize for us… a repeat this week would be nice!!

Fortinet Championship

The event was first held in 2007 (and ran as the Frys.com Open until 2015, then the Safeway Open) and although it isn’t one of the higher profile events on the schedule, it will deliver some very competitive golf as players look to start the new season in good form and start some prize-money and ranking points. It’s the usual mix of semi-well-known names, journeyman pros, and the new intake of players from the Korn Ferry Tour which go to make up a field of breadth… rather than depth!

Prize money $8m ($1.26m to the winner)

Field 156

Highest ranked players: Matsuyama (16), Homa (22), Conners (25), Hoge (45), English (46), Theegala (55).

2021 result :

-19 Max Homa ($61)
-14 Maverick McNealy ($51)
-12 Mito Pereira ($67)
-11 Talor Gooch ($71)
-11 Marc Leishman ($51)

Other recent winners Stewart Cink (2020), Cameron Champ (2019), Kevin Tway (2018), Brendan Steele (2017), Brendan Steele (2016).

Fortinet Championship: The Course

We’re at the Silverado Country Club (North Course) in wine country… Napa, California. The land was converted to golfing use in the 1950s under the direction of famous course designer Robert Trent Jones Jr. After a few subsequent modifications it’s now a 7,166 yard par 72 since undergoing several upgrades, and this is now the 7th year in a row that the PGA event has been held here. Despite it’s tree-lined fairways and relatively small greens, scoring is generally good with recent winning scores averaging around 14-under to 18-under-par.

72-Hole Record 262, Troy Matteson, Rickie Fowler & Jamie Lovemark (all 2009)

18-Hole Record 62, Scott Piercy (2016)

Fortinet Championship: The Weather

A good looking week (bar Sunday) with a daily precipitation forecast of 10%-10%-10%-50% over the course of the tournament. Temperatures will be in the high 70s, with partial cloud cover. Wind speeds will be moderate, with 11-13mph the maximum expected during the four days.

BMW Championship: Outright value bets

These are two each-way outright bets from the Golf Insider. Members receive all of his best bets for all markets – win and each-way, Top 10, Top 20, Round 1 Leader and 3-Ball groups. He covers every tournament on the PGA and European Tours.

Tom Hoge $41 with TopSport

Hoge is a regular player in Napa, and but for a couple of loose R4 scores (75 in 2021, 76 in 2017) we’d be looking at a record of Top 20 finishes in four of his last five starts on this course. And to tie in with this line, Hoge also has form at the Texas Open – with TPC San Antonio throwing up some solid form lines with Silverado. So his game looks a good fit this week, and 5th last time out in the Tour Championship, the 33-year-old should be full of beans heading into the first event of the season. Hoge, like Homa, features highly on my personal ratings, and he’s been a little overlooked this week IMO.

$41

Trey Mullinax $54 with TopSport

30-year-old Mullinax posted a first, and a little overdue, win on the PGA Tour at the Barbasol Championship in July. And his record since (21-37-5-12) is evidence of the positive impact this success has had on the man from Birmingham – Birmingham, Alabama, that is! Mullinax is long off the tee, which isn’t necessarily a huge advantage at Silverado, but he ranks highly for Strokes Gained: Off The Tee, and his putting has been much better in recent outings. His best finish here came on debut in 2016 (22nd), but a much-improved player since then, I fancy Mullinax to maintain his recent upswing in form.

$54

The Golf Insider is a GUN. Look at these winners, all since the start of 2020...

Sebastian Garcia-Rodriguez $126, Roger Sloan $126, Mark Hubbard $126, Tom Hoge $101, Pablo Larrazabal $91, Jeff Winther $91, Nino Bertasio $81, Sam Burns $67, Jhonattan Vegas $67, Lucas Herbert $67, Haotong Li $67, Joaquin Niemann $58, Brian Stuard $51, Ted Potter Jr $51, Russell Henley $51, Victor Perez $51, Harold Varner $51, JT Poston $51, John Catlin $46, Pablo Larrazabal $46, Max Homa $41, Talor Gooch $41.

... and there's plenty more! GET INVOLVED HERE