This article is part of our DraftKings PGA DFS Picks series.
PROCORE CHAMPIONSHIP
Purse: $6M
Winner's Share: $1.512M
FedEx Cup Points: 500 to the winner
Location: Napa, Calif.
Course: Silverado Resort & Spa (North)
Yardage: 7,123
Par: 72
2023 champion: Sahith Theegala
Tournament Preview
We are just a week removed from the debate over the controversial PGA Tour playoff format, one unseen in any other sport. Golf also stands alone on the sports landscape for continuing its season AFTER the playoffs.
That's right, the PGA Tour season resumes this week with an eight-event fall schedule. Sort of like a post-postseason, though officially it's called FedEx Cup Fall.
All joking aside, it is a vitally important three-month stretch that will determine where 100+ golfers are playing in 2025. While the 70 golfers who made the playoffs have their Tour cards already secured, there's still the business of filling out the remaining 55 positions in the top-125 of the point standings. Those 55 golfers will also get full Tour cards, while others who fall short will scramble to get into fields whenever they can or maybe be relegated to the Korn Ferry Tour.
Points already earned in 2024 will stay with the golfers and most will keep accruing them though the fall. The only ones who won't are the top-50 who made the BMW Championship, because they've already done all they can do, securing their cards and getting spots in every Signature Event next season.
However, the little subset of tweeners who stand from No. 51 to No. 70 in points, there's still a lot to play for in the fall. The top-10 players in the fall standings not already among those top-50 will get into two early 2025 Signature Events at Pebble Beach and Riviera.
For the casual golf fan, there aren't any big names even close to dropping outside the top-125, and there aren't any big names looking to get in. Maybe the biggest name in limbo, and he's a big name only because of his fame from the Netflix series "Full Swing," is Joel Dahmen. He sits in 118th place in the point standings, surely in danger of falling out of the top-125 this fall.
Two other names of note are outside the top-125. But Webb Simpson at No. 151 and Gary Woodland at No. 155 are exempt for next season. In fact, Simpson is exempt through 2026.
Dahmen, Simpson and Woodland are among the 144 golfers who will tee it up at Silverado at this traditional Napa Tour stop, albeit with a new title sponsor. It is no longer the Fortinet but now the Procore, a California-based provider of construction management software that didn't even come on board till about six weeks ago. That's not a good sign, nor is the vastly reduced purse. It was $8.4 million last year but only $6 million this year. We almost never see sports dollars decrease. Yikes.
Regardless, there are some big names in the field, notably No. 6-ranked Wyndham Clark, No. 12 and defending champion Sahith Theegala, No. 24 and 2021-22 Silverado winner Max Homa, No. 38 Corey Conners, No. 40 Min Woo Lee and No. 65 Mackenzie Hughes. What do they all have in common? They will be playing in the Presidents Cup matches in two weeks at Royal Montreal in Canada. Also playing here this week is International team captain Mike Weir, in on a sponsor invite. (U.S. captain Jim Furyk was announced on Friday as playing by the tournament's Twitter account, but when the official field was announced later in the day he wasn't on it.)
U.S. assistant captains Stewart Cink and Kevin Kisner, plus the International's Camilo Villegas. are also in the Procure field.
Other names of note include Nick Taylor, Eric Cole, Matt Kuchar, Tom Hoge, Lucas Glover, Maverick McNealy and Keith Mitchell; star amateurs Luke Clanton of Florida State and Ben James of Virginia; former amateur stars Neal Shipley, Michael Thorbjornsen and Wenyi Ding, who left Arizona State after one semester and will play on the DP World Tour next season; and Brandt Snedeker, the recent Payne Stewart Award winner.
This is the 11th time that Silverado has been the host course. There were substantial changes made before last year's tournament, including the course routing. Theegala matched 2020 winner Cink for the tournament record at 21-under. Most years, the winner has been won in the upper teens, so it definitely was not a big-time birdie-fest.
Silverado is not long. But it is heavily tree-lined with narrow fairways averaging only about 20 yards wide, according to the official Golf Course Superintendents sheet. There are multiple doglegs, though that hasn't deterred the biggest hitters from freely letting fly. Still, hitting the fairways matters here. In the past, there has been a lower percentage of driving accuracy, which leads to lower greens in regulation, which ramps up the emphasis on scrambling. Most of the time, putting has not been paramount in determining a winner, notably because most of the golfers have found the going tough on the poa/bentgrass surfaces. The greens are medium size, averaging 5,400 square feet, and run around 11.5 on the Stimpmeter. There aren't many bunkers, just 53, though many of the them are deep. Water comes into play on only two holes.
As for the weather, the course had a very wet winter, during which a big storm caused more than $1 million in damage, costing 68 trees and forcing the course to close for a month. This summer, it has been hot with at least eight days over 100 degrees. As for this week, it should be quite pleasant, with high temperatures not far from 80, little chance of any rain and minimal wind.
Key Stats to Winning at Silverado
The most important indicators every week are current form and course history. "Key Stats" follow in importance.
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee/driving accuracy
• Strokes Gained: Approach/Greens in regulation/Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green
• Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green/Scrambling
• Birdie average/Birdie or better percentage
Past Champions
2023 - Sahith Theegala
2022 - Max Homa
2021 - Max Homa
2020 - Stewart Cink
2019 - Cameron Champ
2018 - Kevin Tway
2017 - Brendan Steele
2016 - Brendan Steele
2015 - Emiliano Grillo
2014 - Sangmoon Bae
Champion's Profile
What we've mostly seen in all the years at Silverado is that ball-strikers excel here, beginning way back with Grillo and Steele. They were great from tee to green but challenged on the greens. That changed last year when Theegala was his typical wayward self off the tee but parlayed a fantastic short game with great putting to emerge victorious. He ranked only 46th in fairways hit but finished third in the field in SG: Around-the-Green and second in SG: Putting. As we always say, there's more than one way to win a golf tournament -- it's just that some are harder than others.
In previous years, Homa and Cink putted decently but won thanks to their game from tee to green.
The winning score every year at Silverado has been between 15- and 21-under and, if you remove Cink and Theegala's 21-under course records, it's between 15- and 19-under.
The over/under on the winning score on golfodds.com was set a little lower than in past years, at 268.5, 19.5 under par.
DRAFTKINGS VALUE PICKS
A note about our model: Our model always considers key stats compiled over a golfer's past 24 rounds. But with the TOUR Championship two weeks ago and most players idle much longer than that, the 24 rounds can extend back two or even three months, weakening their relevance. So, while we still will use our model, we won't be as reliant on it as usual..
Based on Standard $50K Salary Cap
$10,000+
Sahith Theegala - $10,600 (Winning odds at the DraftKings Sportsbook: +1200)
Theegala wouldn't seem like a good fit for Silverado, with fairway accuracy not his specialty. But winning last year and tying for sixth in 2022 offer proof that he does just fine there. Theegala is coming off an excellent TOUR Championship.
Wyndham Clark - $10,400 (+1200)
Clark has never played well at Silverado. But he also hasn't been there since 2022, before he became an elite player. He just went T7-T13-8 in the playoffs, and he was 14th in the Olympics before that. After an absolutely brutal season in the majors, Clark played great down the stretch.
$9,000-$9,900
Corey Conners - $9,800 (+1400)
An accurate driver and one of the sport's top approach players, Conners is a natural fit for Silverado. While he didn't qualify for the TOUR Championship, Conners had a good finish to the season (we know it wasn't the end of the season, we just don't know how else to phrase it). He had top-10s at the Scottish Open and Olympics, and top-25s at the Open Championship and the BMW Championship, his most recent start.
Brendon Todd - $9,100 (+4000)
Todd has not played in more than a month, since the first playoff event in Memphis. But past Silverado results indicate that's not an issue with him. He rarely goes deep into the playoffs yet excels here -- hence the pricey number. Todd finished top-10 the past two years and was top-25 the year before that.
$8,000-$8,900
Eric Cole - $8,700 (+4000)
Cole had a very strong finish to the season, with three top-10s and a top-20 in his final seven starts. It wasn't enough to propel him past the BMW, however. It's no surprise Cole is playing this week -- he plays more than just about anyone else on Tour. Besides, he finished fourth here a year ago.
Mac Meissner - $8,000 (+5500)
Meissner has a pretty hefty price for someone who didn't even qualify for the playoffs at No. 89 in points. But his best stretch of golf all season was at the end of the regular season with four top-20s, including a top-5, in his final five starts. That's one reason Meissner lands inside the top 10 in our model. Others are he's among the most accurate drivers and best tee-to-green players in the field.
$7,000-$7,900
Matt Kuchar - $7,900 (+5500)
We haven't seen Kuchar since the Wyndham. This was the first year he hadn't made the playoffs in the 17 years since their inception, and he was the last remaining player to have reached the playoffs every year. He grades very well for this tournament, one that puts an emphasis more on positioning than sheer power. Kuchar was top-10 here last year and T12 the year before that, and he also landed in the top-10 in our model.
Rico Hoey - $7,700 (+6500)
In June, Hoey was around 170th in points. He made strong run over the past two months to get to 102nd -- not enough to reach the playoffs but enough to virtually secure his card for next year. Over his last six starts ending at the Wyndham, Hoey had three top-10s and another top-25. They weren't the greatest fields, but neither is this one.
Ben Kohles - $7,200 (+10000)
Kohles is the most accurate driver in the 144-man field going back over his past 24 round and is ranked second on Tour for the season. He's a really short hitter, however, and that hurts him on a lot of tracks. But it shouldn't here.
Ben Silverman - $7,300 (+10000)
Likes Kohles, Silverman is short off the tee but accurate. He's not as short as Kohles or as accurate, but he seems well suited for Silverado. And even though putting hasn't proven to be a requirement for success this week, it doesn't hurt that Silverman is ranked top-10 on Tour in SG: Putting.
$6,000-$6,900
Trace Crowe - $6,900 (+12000)
Crowe has a lot to play for during the fall schedule. He's currently 135th in points. We're not completely sure why he's that far back because he does a lot of things well. He's in the upper half of this field in each of the key stats over his past 24 rounds. He is a top-50 putter on the season. He lands well inside the cut line in our model. And he was playing his best golf when the regular season ended, with a top-25 at the 3M Open and a top-10 at the Wyndham.
Joel Dahmen - $6,900 (+17000)
As mentioned above, Dahmen is ranked 118th in points. You have to be a really bad putter to be ranked top-25 in SG: Approach and still be so far back in points. And Dahmen is pretty bad, ranked outside the top-150 in SG: Putting. But he's so good with his driver and long irons that he should make the cut in this weak field, and probably a lot more.
Troy Merritt - $6,700 (+20000)
Merritt is 143rd in points. So he has a long way to go. In this field, he's surely good enough to make the cut. He's made his past three cuts at Silverado, including a top-10 last year. He also finished top-20 three years ago and even top-5 back in 2018. Out model puts Merritt inside the cut line -- not by a lot, but inside nonetheless.
Wenyi Ding - $6,500 (+25000)
The burgeoning Chinese star is only 19. He was the 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur champion. He was so good at Arizona State he was an All-American and Pac-12 Player of the Years as a freshman last year -- then left. He will play on the DP World Tour next year, qualifying via something called the Global Amateur Pathway. Ding will be making his second PGA Tour start after missing the cut at the 2023 U.S. Open.
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