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There are a couple things in play this week when thinking about the course:

1. This is easily the best field to ever tee it up in Napa.

2. The last couple of years have seen a change in how the course plays.

We can only guess at the impact of the improved field, but I am a strong believer that as players unlock a new angle to attacking a course we should lean into that. And, what that has meant in Napa is probably the most short game heavy event on the calendar. Nowhere else on Tour is it harder to separate yourself with the ball striking. We can see that just looking at the stats from the last two years here.

Top 6 finishers in 2023 & 2024 Strokes Gained Short Game (SG P + SG ARG) vs. Strokes Gained Ball Striking (OTT + APP). Stats are per round:

Short Game | Ball Striking

2024

3.1 | 1.1

2.0 | 1.0

1.6 | 1.1

2.4 | 0.1

0.8 | 1.7

1.1 | 1.4

2023

3.4 | 0.8

1.5 | 2.3

2.7 | 0.6

1.2 | 1.9

1.5 | 1.3

2.3 | 0.2

TOTAL

23.7 | 13.5

That’s nearly 64% of strokes gained coming from player’s short games which is a staggering number for a Tour event. And, it’s not just the flatstick. Last year every player in the Top 6 gained at least +0.8 on the week in both short game categories. Players have separated here with strong, balanced short game play.

The cause of this is that it’s basically impossible to hit the fairways at Silverado and players have realized it’s not worth really trying. This place gets baked (shoutout the ISCO) and the Accuracy % ends up below 50% pretty much every year. The rough isn’t overly penal and the course isn’t overly long, so the driving test is really keeping yourself from being blocked out by trees. That’s why all sorts of different driving styles work here, but you do need to be in control enough to miss in the correct spots. Last year in a full field only four players gained over four strokes OTT. You just don’t see that very often.

The driving aspect could be an area we see some slight changes with better players in the field, but it’s still going to be really hard to hit fairways for everyone and it’s highly unlikely that there is a path to separating yourself from the tee here.

There is more room for upside with the iron play since it basically becomes an iron play + short game contest for everyone who keeps the ball from being blocked by trees. In a sense, Par 3s on every hole. The GIR rate remains above average despite the low fairway percentage and this is where separation with the flatstick really comes into play. Proximity is still tough into the firmer surfaces from the rough so it’s a lot of GIRs but still a lot of longer range putts. This is another spot where a stronger field may lead to better proximity but hard to see it being enough to relieve the stress on the putter.

We see the ARG emphasis come into play because these firm surfaces will still lead to a fair amount of rejections and you have to keep the pedal down so bogeys hurt. The other area where ARG shines is on the Par 5s where almost everyone in the field can get to each of them in two but it’s still quite tricky to get the ball up and down, so short game becomes a key point of differentiation.

Overall the handicapping game-plan in recent years at Silverado has been pretty straightforward - competence in the ball striking, excellence in the short game. For the most part, I’d expect that to remain the same despite the improved field. There is one player in the field who can probably change that and shocker, it’s Scottie. Historically there hasn’t been any path to separating at Harbour Town OTT but we saw Scottie do just that in 2024. No one else in the stronger Harbour Town fields has been able to change the course keys, but Scottie has done it and could do it again here.

Not surprisingly, we see the unique short game emphasis showing up in Course History as well. There is obviously stickiness here with a couple repeat champions, but the most consistent course history element for winners has been previous short game success. We can see that looking at recent winners best short game performances at Silverado prior to their wins:

Kizzire: +10.7

Theegala: +7.2

Finally, because so few courses on Tour see such a heavy short game emphasis this isn’t a heavy COMP week. It’s much better to hone in on overall short game stats and form. Poa putting results are probably useful but there isn’t enough evidence in the comp data to justify using them in the model. However, there are some spots with pretty strong overlaps and most tend to feature meaningful short game emphasis vs Tour average. Here are recent winners best results on the COMPs:

TPC Summerlin - Kizzire T2, Cink T3

Torrey - Kizzire T8, Theegala T4, Homa W, Cink T3

TPC Twin Cities - Theegala T6, Homa T3, Champ W, Tway T5

TPC River Highlands - Kizzire T6, Theegala T2, Cink W, Tway T6

Colonial - Kizzire T3, Homa T9, Cink T2, Tway T5

TLDR; short game to the max.