Possibly confusing to many fans, the 2024 PGA Tour season resumes with the Procore Championship, formerly known as the Fortinet, held once again at the Silverado Resort in California. Yes, it’s still the 2024 season, even though we just watched the 2024 playoffs. And yes, this is still the same Napa tournament Max Homa has won two out of the last three years.
An overall refresher: the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings already have their spots locked in for all the signature events in 2025. Golfers who finish 51st to 60th after the final event this fall will be exempt into the signature events at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Those finishing inside the top 125 after the last event will gain status for 2025. The only other way to gain exempt status or additional access to 2025 events is to win this fall. So there is a lot of important golf to come for the middle and back end of the pack on the PGA Tour.
Let’s dig in and take a look at three guys to target for this week in Napa:
Luke Clanton Top 20 +125
Clanton has finished top 10 in three of his six starts on Tour this year. With questions about the form of many players in this field, we don’t have to worry about that for Clanton as he is in the midst of his college season at Florida State. He is an elite ball-striker who would lead this field in that metric if he had enough rounds to qualify. He bombs it off the tee and is excellent with his irons, especially short irons and wedges. That’s the formula we have seen succeed at this course many times. Take advantage of Clanton still being a bit of an unknown to the books, because in 2025 you won’t see odds this good for him.
Beau Hossler Top 40 -150
Hossler has finished in the top 30 in each of the last four years of this event. In his last start at the Wyndham he finished 12th, gaining strokes in each of the four main categories (off the tee, approach, around the green, and putting). That was only the third time in the last three years that he has done that. So I’ll gladly take a Californian in good all-around form who has had consistent success here.
Mark Hubbard Top 40 -140
Hubbard made a bit of a gaffe this week: he missed the registration deadline for this event. Hard to believe, right? So the only option he had was to play the Monday qualifier. He was medalist there, and is now in the field this week.
All's well that ends well 📱💦@HomelessHubbs dropped his phone in a cold plunge last week and missed the committment deadline for @ProcoreChamp as a result.
He decided to enter the Monday qualifier to try and play his way in and carded the lowest round of the day 💪 https://t.co/bKBdcodWWr pic.twitter.com/fPztF3Xlbe
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 9, 2024
He clearly wants to play this event, and we know he is in good form after Monday’s round. He has finished 21st or better in four of his last five appearances here.