Procore Championship is returning to Napa’s Silverado Resort

PGA Tour golf comes back to California’s wine country in three months as Procore Corporation returns for its second year as the presenting sponsor of the Tour’s Napa stop, at the famed Silverado Resort & Spa, September 8–14.

Practice rounds and pro-am events start tournament week off, Monday through Wednesday, 8–10 September, with competition rounds beginning on Thursday the 11th.

The tournament has a long and varied history, stretching back to 2007 over three venues (Scottsdale, Arizona’s, Grayhawk Golf Club; CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin, California; and the current venue – Napa’s Silverado Resort & Spa) and three previous sponsors – Fry’s Electronics, Safeway, and Fortinet.

While the tournament’s spot in the PGA Tour calendar has remained fairly constant, its place in the scheme of things has not as the Tour veered from a calendar-year schedule to a split-year schedule and back again. Before the switch to a split-year schedule in 2013, this event’s early fall placement made it a post-Tour-Championship staple for newer players and fading veterans looking to boost their bank accounts while the big names took time off before the next year’s season opener in Hawaii. Starting in 2013 the event, as the Safeway Open, became the Tour’s season opener, and the awarding of FedEx Cup points boosted its appeal to players who wanted to get a jump on the year-long chase to the Tour Championship.

Previous sponsor Fortinet, an internet security firm, took over sponsorship from Safeway in 2021 with the openly admitted goal of possessing not only a prime venue in the heart of Northern California’s wine country, but THE prime spot in the PGA Tour schedule – the season opener.

Fortinet Senior VP Jim Overbeck was ambivalent, on the surface, about the change back to the calendar-year season when asked about it at a pre-tournament press conference in 2022, but the handwriting was on the wall, and the network security firm – who I always felt saw the tournament as a combination networking event and corporate party that just happened to have a golf tournament attached – pulled out of their deal with the PGA Tour and left the event’s local organizers scrambling for a presenting sponsor.

Current sponsor Procore, a construction management software company based in Carpinteria, California, is in the second-year of the two-year commitment they signed up for last year. Who knows where the event will go from here – but for now golf fans can once again look forward to enjoying good food, good wine, and world-class golf action at a handsome venue overlooked by the golden hillsides of the Napa Valley.

General admission tickets start at $55 per day and include access to PGA TOUR competition, all fan zones, and public viewing areas. Children 15 and under are admitted free with a ticketed adult (up to four per adult). Daily parking is available for $25 and can be purchased in advance online.

For a $250 daily ticket, fans looking for an upgraded experience can elevate their day at the Redwood Club, an all-new VIP shared hospitality venue behind the 18th tee. Amenities include front-row seating, a hosted daily lunch, beer and wine service, a full cash bar for spirits, and upgraded restrooms.

Ticketing information for the tournament is available online at https://procorechampionship.com/tickets/, and if an up-close, behind-the-scenes PGA Tour experience is what you are looking for, check out volunteer opportunities at https://procorechampionship.com/Volunteer/.

Napa Valley Golf Championship calls for volunteers

The rebranded Napa Valley PGA Tour event is putting out a call for volunteers to help run this year’s event. Formerly known as the Safeway Open and the Fortinet Championship, the Napa Valley Golf Championship, an official PGA TOUR event, takes place Sept. 12–15, 2024 at Silverado Resort in Napa, California.

If you have ever attended or even previously volunteered at a golf tournament, whether professional or amateur, you know how important the volunteer workers are to the running of an event. It is a fun, rewarding activity – I know, as I have volunteered at a number of USGA championship events – and a great chance to see, in this case, Tour-level professional golf close-up.

Committees seeking volunteers for the event include the hospitality committee, the supply and distribution committee, and the gallery management ambassador committee.

A branded uniform, including a polo, jacket and hat, in addition to other appreciation pieces, is included in the registration fee ($55 for new volunteers.)

For more information on committee descriptions and to sign up visit NapaValleyGolfChampionship.com/Volunteer/.

Fortinet Championship kicks off FedEx Cup chase again in 2022, but what comes next?

The 2021 Fortinet Championship (the event previously known as the Safeway Championship) was a successful tournament, and Fortinet, the Silicon Valley online-security company, did an admirable job of stepping up and taking over as presenting sponsor when Safeway stepped away from the role after the 2020 event. Back for 2022, with a few minor changes in the entertainment and hospitality aspects of the event, the Fortinet Championship is set, once again, to open the 2022-2023 PGA Tour season and the race to the FedEx Cup—but what about the future?

This event is no stranger to change. First staged in 2007 as the Fry’s Electronics Open at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, it was renamed the Frys.com Open in 2008, was moved to the CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin, California in 2010, and moved again, to its current location at the Silverado Resort and Spa, in October 2014. In 2016 Safeway Inc. took over the event, which was played as the Safeway Open through 2020, and in 2021 Fortinet took up the mantle.

Starting in 2024 the PGA Tour is going back to a calendar-year schedule, ending the nine-year run, starting in 2013, of the oddball wraparound season that elevated the then-Frys.com Open from the first event of the post-Tour Championship fall schedule to the opening gun in the race for FedEx Cup points. The coming change in schedule means that the 2023 Fortinet Championship may once again be relegated to a position as the first event in a second-tier fall schedule that will lack the presence of the big guns of the PGA Tour, who are  likely to be resting up after the money chase of the FedEx Cup finals.

Back in the days before the 2013 advent of the wrap-around PGA Tour season, the late-season Fall Series tournament consisted of four events played after the conclusion of the FedEx Cup Tour Championship series. That “Fall Series” was definitely the low season for the PGA Tour; it mostly drew players from near the bottom of the money list—both veterans and newbies—who were looking to bolster their dollar count and strengthen their position for the next season.

Under the PGA Tour’s coming new calendar-year schedule, those players who are outside of the FedEx-Cup-eligible top-70 at the end of the regular season will compete in a “compelling, consequential final stretch” of fall events that will determine their status for the following season, while the top 50 players will be eligible for a new Fall Series of up to three international events played after the Tour Championship. These new, limited-field, no-cut (AKA “money-grab”) events will represent a chance for the top players to pad their bank accounts some more, if they so desire, and still have the “off season” that so many of the already-pampered stars of the game are complaining that they lack.

The old pre-wraparound Fall Series may have lacked the star power and tension of the race for the FedEx Cup, but it carried some drama because of the make-or-break storylines that it engendered. At least, that’s the way many people saw it, myself included—but after I asked Jim Overbeck, Fortinet’s Senior Vice President of Marketing for North America, about the company’s reaction to the scheduling change, I got the feeling that the folks at Fortinet don’t feel the same way.

The talk from the dais at the 2022 Fortinet Championship Media Day press conference on July 14th was almost all about the business-networking opportunities that the tournament represents, giving the distinct impression that the golf tournament was viewed as a jolly good excuse to get together and talk network security against a backdrop of beautiful Napa Valley scenery, amongst rolling, vine-covered hills, while enjoying world-class wine and food.

Overbeck’s initial response to my question was, “If there’s one question I saw coming, that was the question.”

He continued, saying “We made a six-year commitment to the PGA Tour as a partner to have the Fortinet Championship, and the concept was we would be the first event of the season, and kick off the FedEx Cup points. That’s changed.”

The return to a calendar-year season means “our product changes a little bit.” Citing his relationship with the PGA Tour, Overbeck went on to say, “We’re working very tightly with them—they know our preference. They know what we’re willing to do and it has a lot to do with Napa. I told them as the music’s playing, when it stops we don’t want to be in a worse chair than when we started. They’ve been a great partner with us, and they’re working to move some roadblocks to make sure that we’re in a really good spot.”

I’ll be honest—I don’t know exactly what all of that means, but that one sentence—“I told them as the music’s playing, when it stops we don’t want to be in a worse chair than when we started.”—leads me to think that the Fortinet folks really like Napa, but don’t relish the thought of losing the cachet of being the event that kicks off the PGA Tour’s big show—the FedEx Cup race.

Does this mean that a change in the Fortinet Championship’s spot in the PGA Tour schedule is in the works once the calendar-year season returns? We will have to wait and see, and maybe not as long as we might think, because while the new schedule begins in January 2024, the change really comes in August 2023 after the Tour Championship, when the new fall schedule picks up as a lead-in to the return of the calendar-year season.

A leavening of big names enriches the field in Napa this week for PGA Tour season opener

Before the PGA Tour’s changeover to the split schedule in 2013–2014, the events which were played in the Fall and early winter, after the Tour Championship, were known as the Fall Series. These tournament were generally played by a mix of young guns, mid-packers, and former greats who had slipped off their game—players who had to scramble for starts in the regular season and were looking for opportunities to play their way into, or back into, the mainstream events of the Tour.

With the onset to the split schedule some things changed, and some things stayed the same. FedEx Cup points and a shot at a Masters berth were added to the plate for these events, adding further incentive for their traditional fields, but the fields generally remained the same, with few of the big names wanting or needing to tee it up and play before the traditional season-openers in Hawaii in January.

The newly revamped Fortinet Championship (formerly the Safeway Open; before that the Frys.com Open) sits in a somewhat precarious spot in the schedule this year—after the FedEx Cup and the week-long PGA Tour “off-season”, and immediately before the Ryder Cup. The crème de la crème of American players are in Wisconsin practicing at Whistling Straits with Ryder Cup skipper Steve Stricker, so some of the big names that golf fans would love to see this week won’t be in the field. Despite that, there will still be plenty of talent, and a few big names, striding the fairways of the North Course at the Silverado Resort & Spa in Napa later this week.

One big-name early commit is fan favorite Phil Mickelson. Mickelson was the official tournament spokesman for event during its four-year run as the Safeway Open, thanks to his association with tournament organizers Lagardère Sports, and has remained in that role after the handover to cyber-security company Fortinet as presenting sponsor of the event. Presumably he doesn’t need to be in Wisconsin this week to prep for his role as a Ryder Cup vice-captain.

One surprising, and very welcome, name in the field this week is Jon Rahm, the current holder of the World #1 ranking and a member of the 2021 European Ryder Cup team that will be in Whistling Straits next week.

You have to read down the OWGR list to #20, Hideki Matsuyama, for the next top-tier name that is appearing in the field at Silverado this week, hopscotching over a bunch of guys who will be teeing it up at Whistling Straits next week, on both squads. Webb Simpson and Kevin Na round out the rest of the Top 30 players who are in the field this week.

Plenty of other notable, recognizable names are in the field, though, such PGA Tour stalwarts as Charley Hoffman, Charles Howell III, Matt Kuchar, Pat Perez, Jason Dufner, Brandt Snedeker, and Harold Varner III.

Former champions of the event who are in the field this year include Sangmoon Bae (2014) and Emiliano Grillo (2015) from the Frys.com Open days; Brendan Steele (2016, 2017), the first Safeway Open champ, who liked it so well he came back and did it again the next year; and Kevin Tway (2018). Other players of note whom fans will be able to see this week are Danny Willett, who benefitted from Jordan Spieth’s 2016 Masters meltdown to take home that year’s green jacket; and newly named PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, Will Zalatoris.

Players of particular interest to Northern California golf fans include 2019 winner Cameron Champ, of Sacramento; Kevin Chappell, out of Fresno and UCLA; former Stanford Men’s golf team members Patrick Rodgers, Brandon Wu, San José native Joseph Bramlett, and Hillsborough’s Maverick McNealy; Cal Men’s golf graduates James Hahn, of Alameda, and Max Homa; former SJSU Spartan Mark Hubbard, and Sacramento native and Fresno State grad Nick Watney.

Fortinet Championship: New kids on the block look forward to their spot on the PGA Tour calendar

It’s a fact of life in the world of corporate sponsorship of sporting events that sponsors come and go, and though not as regular as the changing of the seasons, it is as inevitable as the tide. The time has come, in that irregular cycle, for a much-loved Northern California event—the erstwhile Safeway Open, held at Napa’s Silverado Resort and Spa for the last four years, is turning over a new leaf to become the Fortinet Championship.

The Mansion at Silverado Resort and Spa, on the east side of the Napa Valley, once the home of United States Senator John Miller. (photo courtesy Silverado Resort and Spa)

Fortinet is not a name that you will necessarily be familiar with unless you are a commercial IT professional; they are a 20-year-old Silicon Valley company, headquartered in Sunnyvale, that provides enterprise security services to businesses, and educational and government institutions. The $4 billion company stepped in to take up the sponsorship of the season-opening PGA Tour event when Safeway ended a four-year run as title sponsor in 2020.

Fortinet has committed to a six-year run as title sponsor of the event, with an option for a seventh. Asked during a media day press conference last week if the company is committed to keeping the event at the Napa Valley venue, Fortinet’s Chief Marketing Officer John Maddison said that while they are not contractually obligated to the Silverado Resort and Spa, they consider it an ideal location for the event for their purposes.

The new title sponsor will be conducting a cyber-security symposium during tournament week along with partners IBM and CDW, among others, but while the IT executives and professionals are schmoozing and networking, golf fans who are just looking for a nice day out on a beautiful golf course will still get to enjoy good food, drink, and post-round entertainment, along with some golf competition on the Johnny Miller-designed North Course at Silverado Resort and Spa.

The full list of competitors for the 2021 event isn’t known yet, but Phil Mickelson, who stepped into the role of tournament spokesperson during the Safeway Open period (I’m going to miss those big cardboard Phil cutouts at my local Safeway…) through his association with sports-marketing firm Lagardére is continuing his commitment to the event. The 2019 winner, Cameron Champ, a NorCal local from Sacramento, is also committed to the tournament. Champ’s non-profit, the Cameron Champ Foundation, will hold a pro-am and a charity golf tournament on the Monday of tournament week, September 13th.

More information on the event, including parking, food and drink, volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, ticket sales and the lineup for the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night live music concerts can be found online at https://www.fortinetchampionship.com

PGA Tour season opens in the Napa Valley under orange-tinted skies

 Advocates of a PGA Tour off-season got no satisfaction this week as the 2020–2021 season opener got underway at Napa’s Silverado Resort and Spa on Thursday – hard on the heels of the Labor Day Monday finish of the 2019–2020 Fedex Cup final.

Ominous orange-tinted skies brought back memories of the 2018 event, which closed out its final day in blustery conditions that, later in the evening, played a part in igniting wildfires in the nearby hills that swept across the tournament venue destroying at least one grandstand complex. Though not directly threatened by any of the wildfires currently raging across the state of California, the Napa area, like much of Northern California, is suffering the worst air-quality conditions the region has ever experienced.

This year’s field for the event is a disparate collection of young guns and established stars, with a healthy dose of major winners—Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth, Jim Furyk, Shane Lowry, Charl Schwartzel, Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner, and the ubiquitous Phil Mickelson (whose representing agency, Lagardère Sports, is the event organizer), and one former World Number One, Luke Donald.

You had to look a ways down the leaderboard after the first round to see any of those names, however, as Schwartzel, the 2014 Master champion, Shane Lowry, 2019 Open champion, and Keegan Bradley, the 2013 PGA champion, had the best first rounds of their major-winning peers, all opening at T11 with 4-under 68s.

Dufner and Mickelson were next among the major winners in the field at 2-under and 1-under, respectively, while none of the rest managed to break par: Garcia and Furyk at even par; and Jordan Spieth, whose struggles continue into the new season, at 1-over. Luke Donald, whose tenure as World #1 lasted for a mere four weeks in 2012, struggled to 6-over 78.

The leader after Round One was Scotsman Russell Knox, who opened with a clean-card 9-under 63 on the 7,203-yard North Course at Silverado, followed by Sam Burns, Bo Hoag, and Cameron Percy, all one shot back at 8-under. Two-time Safeway Open champ Brendan Steele opened with what for him was a typical opening round on the wine-country course, a 7-under 65. The 2017 and 2018 champion in the event carded opening rounds of 67 and 65 in his recent back-to-back victories here.

Bay Area golf fans face a decision next September

2019 holds the promise of being a very good year for Bay Area golf fans. The 119th U.S. Open will be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links, in the storied seaside course’s centennial year; a new PGA Tour event sponsored by the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry will appear on the schedule, played at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City†; and the LPGA will return with the second year of the reboot of their Bay Area tournament of recent years, also at Lake Merced.

However, a week before the Steph Curry event, in the last week of September, Bay Area golf fans will have a decision to make. In late September, as the 2019-2020 PGA Tour season is starting up, and the 2019 PGA Champions season is winding down, both tours will be playing in Northern California, at the same time, 160 miles apart. The PGA Tour will be kicking things off with the Safeway Open, at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, and the PGA Champions will be bringing along the next generation of golfers in the PURE Insurance Championship Impacting the First Tee, at Pebble Beach and Poppy Hills in the Del Monte Forest.

How did this happen? Aren’t the PGA Tour and the PGA Champions part of the same organization? Do their scheduling people talk to each other? Do they own a calendar—and a map?

Call it a first-world problem for Bay Area golf fans: Which world-class destination do we head to that week to watch golf—the Silverado Resort & Spa in America’s most venerated wine region, the Napa Valley; or Pebble Beach, the ne plus ultra of American public golf, on the picturesque Monterey Peninsula? Do we want to see the young guns of the PGA Tour (but probably few, if any, big stars), or the old-pro PGA Champions, playing alongside youngsters the same age as their grandkids?

What’s a golf fan to do?

Actually, there’s no wrong answer here—either choice results in a great time at a beautiful venue. Late September is prime time for visiting either the California coast or the Napa Valley; the weather is ideal: neither too hot nor too cold, generally sunny and clear, and there’s rarely any fog at the coast. It’s a shame that this scheduling conflict prevents local golf fans from possibly enjoying two weeks of great golf, but we’re still lucky that we have the choice of these two great events at beautiful destination venues.

† (Correction: In early January it was announced that talks with the potential title sponsor of the Steph Curry-sponsored event, Workday, had fallen through, and that the event would not be held in 2019. There is hope that the event will appear in the schedule in 2020, potentially at TPC Harding Park, in San Francisco.)

Maverick McNealy makes strong start to pro career in first round of 2017 Safeway Open

Maverick McNealy, the former Stanford men’s golf standout who is making his first start as a professional golfer this week at the Safeway Open, at Napa’s Silverado Resort and Spa,  brings a unique background and point of view to a pro golf career. McNealy, who ended his amateur career ranked #2 in the world, after a stint at #1, is not your typical highly ranked college golfer using college golf as a springboard to a pro career.

Former Stanford men’s golf star Maverick McNealy lines up his birdie putt on the par three 15th hole at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, California during the first round of the 2017 Safeway Open. (photo by author)

The 21-year-old graduated from Stanford with a degree in Management Science and Engineering—not a more typical future-Tour-pro soft option such as Communications or Sports Management—and for the first couple of years of his college career had looked forward to following college golf with a career in business.

There’s precedent for his early direction—McNealy’s father is Scott McNealy, co-founder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems, a well-known (if not legendary) figure in Silicon Valley. With a Stanford degree in a rigorous dual-business/engineering discipline, and his father’s example to follow, the younger McNealy anticipated following his college golf career with a career in business.

In a statement he posted on the Stanford’s collegiate sports website, McNealy explained his decision to pursue a professional golf career. “It wasn’t until after my sophomore year that it even crossed my mind that I might be good enough to give it a shot …my top priorities in college lay with my team and my studies. I wouldn't have traded one day with my teammates wearing the Cardinal red for anything.”

A former junior hockey player as well as a golfer, McNealy signed with Stanford in November 2012, and through his sophomore and junior years he stood out even on the traditionally strong Stanford squad. Winning six times in his sophomore season, and four more times as a junior, McNealy won the 2015 Fred Haskins Award as the top male college golfer.

McNealy struggled with his game starting in the spring of his junior year, the result of equipment changes he made in the wake of Nike Golf’s exit from the golf hard goods market. A tough playing schedule combined with a rigorous school schedule saw him stepping away from golf for a rest in the summer before his senior year. He won only once as a senior, which left him in a three-way tie for the school wins record with Patrick Rodgers and another familiar name in Stanford men’s golf, Tiger Woods (who did it in two years, as an Econ major.)

With a frankly privileged Silicon Valley upbringing—wealthy parents, and an education from the Harker School and Stanford—McNealy could coast through life, but that’s not his way. Using the example of his father, whom he calls his “hero”, McNealy wants to use the opportunities afforded him by a pro golf career to grow the game of golf and “…be a role model and an inspiration to young golfers and athletes.” The elder McNealy employed 235,000 people worldwide during his tenure at Sun Microsystems, and his son would like to have a similar positive impact on the world.

Of his father, McNealy says, “If I could work half as hard as he did, and accomplish a fraction of the things he did, I could make the world a better place.”

McNealy brings a certain level of experience in professional golf to his first start as a pro, having played in nine professional tournaments as an amateur, five on the PGA Tour – making the cut in all five of those events. He has also brought a high level of business acumen to bear on his transition into the pro ranks. Working with his management team at P3SportsReps, McNealy has secured endorsement deals with UnderArmour for apparel, financial services company KPMG for hat space, and Callaway for equipment.

The Callaway decision springs from his struggles with the transition when Nike pulled out of the business, and his education in engineering. “I’m an engineer by training, and I love the way they (Callaway) nitpick and try to make the best possible golf clubs.”

The Safeway Open is the first of seven PGA Tour events for which McNealy has secured sponsors’ exemptions, a list which includes the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (where his father will be his pro-am partner), the Farmers Insurance Open, AT&T Byron Nelson, and Dean & DeLuca Invitational.

The Safeway event is a comfortable start for Bay Area native McNealy, with familiar climate, conditions and course—Stanford played the Gifford Collegiate event at Silverado last fall.

McNealy had a strong showing in his first round as a pro, carding a 4-under 68 to finish the round T-8.

Going out in 1-under 35, McNealy was a little wobbly on the greens on the front nine, taking 17 putts, with a three-putt bogey on the par-three 2nd hole, and a handful of just-missed birdie opportunities. He closed out the front side on a rising note with birdies at holes 8 and 9.

A bogey on the 10th hole opened his second nine, but it was the last over-par number he posted on the day. His tee shot at the over-water par-three 11th hole settled 15 feet from the hole, and he slid the putt right into the throat of the hole for a birdie to go 2-under for the round. McNealy then made a run of three pars on holes 12 through 14.

The pressure didn’t seem to phase the the youngster, but after he made a tougher-than-it-looked downhill/sidehill 4-1/2-foot par putt on #12, his father, who had been following Maverick all day, was heard to say, “This is hard, it’s really hard.”

The younger McNealy seemed to get his game dialed in on the back nine, with closer approaches that contributed to a lower putt-count—14 vs the 17 he took on the front side. Firing up just when it counted, McNealy then put together a string of three straight birdies on holes 15 through 17.

On 15, a 189-yard par-three with water in play right, McNealy played a gutsy shot to the tucked right-front flag. His tee shot hit in the 4-foot gap between the flagstick and the edge of the green, carried past the flag, then rolled back, leaving a 7-foot putt for birdie that he dropped with conviction.

A scrambling birdie from the left greenside rough at 16, and another birdie on 17, after stuffing his approach to the elevated green to 2-1/2 feet, saw McNealy move to 4-under, where he finished after closing the round with a par at the par-five 18th hole for a back-nine 33 and a 4-under 68 final score.

McNealy showed his strength in his Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green and Strokes Gained: Approach The Green stats, where he posted numbers of 4.426 and 3.095, respectively; 3rd and 4th on the day. His Strokes Gained total was 3.965, tied for 8th for the field.

Even a low-key early-season event like the Safeway Open represents a tough transition when making the jump from amateur to professional competition, and if the youngster from Stanford carries on as he began today, it seems a pretty good bet that he will make the kind of mark on the PGA Tour that he did in his Stanford career.