PGA: Safeway Open course breakdown and key stats
PGA: Safeway Open course breakdown and key stats
Welcome to “Brendan Steele week” & say hello to the third week into our fresh PGA Season. If you followed along at the Sanderson Farms Championship you’d have witnessed a quite inspiring performance and finish from our young field which delivered another first-time winner on the PGA Tour in Sebastian Muñoz. Sebastian found himself in a playoff that pitted him against SungJae Im after nailing some clutch shots on 17 and 18 on Sunday erasing a 1 shot deficit. What seemed surely look like the reigning rookie of the years maiden PGA victory, the Sunday final round resulted in several young and hungry players fighting for the top position, once again introducing their talents to the world.
As the season moves forward we will begin to see bigger names enter the fold as we dive deeper into the fall swing and begin preparations for bigger purses, more FedEx points and of course next year’s major championships. We begin this week with the Safeway Open at Silverado Golf Club which will be headlined by several big names in the likes of Justin Thomas, Adam Scott, Bryson Dechambeau, and even young star Collin Morikawa to name a few. Silverado has a few nuances that favor a specific type of player. I will highlight the key stats to looks for this week as well as dive into the course history and tournament info to help you get a little more insight as to how to appropriately begin your research for the week.
Located in Napa California surrounded by the gorgeous landscapes of “Wine Country” is the Silverado Resort and Spa which owns two 18 hole tracks that include a North and South Course. Our event will compete on the championship course which is indeed the North Course that was originally constructed in 1966, and redesigned by the renowned Robert Trent Jones in the late 2000’s.
The Silverado ownership is composed of a group that includes the famed and recently retired Johnny Miller who also has had his influences on the course design. What this means for the golfers is that this will theoretically eliminate a lot of drivers off the tee as RTJ courses will usually require a lot of creativity in finding the fairways. This is evidenced by a measly 54% of fairway accuracy among its former competitors matched with 279 yards average off the tee. What this tells us off the bat is essentially Silverado is a second shot course and those that might try to overpower it will not find the most success.
Those who do find the fairways are rewarded with a tour average of 68% of Greens in Regulation, so we are seeing a very similar theme as last week, but where it will change is on the green surfaces which will now sport Poa Annua grass naturally being a West Coast and Californian course. The Tournament stimp meters at Silverado also roll out to 10.5-11 ft which is considerably slower than the bermudagrass that most of these players have been experiencing in the previous weeks which were at 12.5-13ft.