Player Pool: Fortinet Championship
We kick off the fall swing
It feels so good to be back
Not going to get too in the weeds on analysis here — we just started college football and NFL season, and while there are still some good tournaments, with the weaker fields - we’re not seeing as much Draft Kings action. However, that could work to our advantage.
Silverado North Course is one of the easier courses on Tour and this championship kicks off the FedEx Fall Swing — no longer the start of a new season, but a continuation of this current season which just held the Tour Championship. It’s unlikely we see much of the stars come out as their spots have all been locked up for next year, but golfers still jockeying for guaranteed position and cards will come out and compete.
This weeks golf course is a shorter 7,100 yard course that plays in the -15 through -20 range for winners - Max Homa has won here two years running and returns as Fortinet is one of his sponsors and he’s won twice. Both he and Justin Thomas are in the field looking to sharpen their games before heading to Rome to play in the Ryder Cup. They are significantly more talented than most of the field, even with JT’s recent woes, but with the weight of the Ryder Cup team selection off his shoulders, maybe JT is more relaxed? My only concern is if they are there to just fine tune some aspects of their game and aren’t fully focused on Fortinet versus Ryder Cup (completely understandable).
While the cream definitely rises to the top here, there are still some interesting takeaways in the top portion of our player pool. You’ll notice I have both distance rank and trend rank shown here.
Both ranks are full field ranks
The trend rank is the full field trend table rank that I build
Sam Ryder is extremely interesting to me with his high trend rank and relative spot in the player pool. His click percentage in tournaments is what you’ll need to find, but his ball striking and approach game of late should fit well here.
Even with the extremely tight fairways at Silverado, the rough being non penal and the short hole lengths, distance can certainly be rewarded here which is why you see the ranks here in the pool.
As always, play Luke List at your own expense.
Garrick Higgo matches nicely with a good total score and high trend table rank. His distance will be a plus as will his putter and he’s 76th in FedEx points, close enough to warrant giving maximum effort to secure himself a spot in the early premier events of the new season starting in January.
Taylor Pendrith is another bomber with a good total score and high trend rank, meaning he’s been finding his game of late - usually these are good targets for first page leaderboard material.
Erik Van Rooyen has massive distance relative to the field and is the top golfer in the full field trend table - depending on what the field does with him click wise, with the strength of this field (or lack thereof, more appropriately) EVR has a chance to make a big charge at a bargain price. Almost all aspects of his recent form are positive, save his around the green game, and that shouldn’t be much of an issue here. He also needs as many FedEx points as he can muster, so he’ll be plenty motivated.
Trevor Cone popped up with a big week at the Barbasol Championship (similar field) and had actually made the cut in 5 of his last 7 events, many of them with substantially stronger fields than this one. His length, approach and ball striking ability should be fine here at Silverado.
Purely a tournament flyer, Max McGreevy can provide extreme salary relief and a low clicked option. Checking in 2nd overall in the trend table, McGreevy seems to have found something in his game that’s vaulted him on a good trajectory — if he can keep it up remains to be seen, but he needs to find positives and to keep grinding. It’s helpful he had the cut in 3 of his previous 4 PGA events, again most of them containing much stronger fields than this one.
JT remains a mystery - I honestly can’t get too much of a feel of what he’ll do. It could either be just a quick tune up to get ready for the Ryder Cup, but sitting at 71st in the FedEx points list, he may also be incredibly motivated to secure his spot in bigger tournaments next year, prove “the haters” wrong about his Ryder Cup selection, et al. Now is that something I’m willing to pay up for? If the field is off of him, then I’d want to be on him and vice versa. It’s about the only way it makes sense to me at salary.
Good luck - get 6/6 through! Win some money while everyone else is paying attention to the NFL!