PGA Tour’s Fortinet Championship is a big week for Walter, Silverado Resort’s Director of Agronomy
David Walter doesn’t have a 9-to-5 job.
Far from it.
As the Director of Agronomy at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, Walter arrives to work early and is on site the rest of the day, leading and overseeing operations on the North and South courses, driving range and practice green.
“It’s one of those things, I know what I signed up for. We work until the job is complete,” said Walter, a native of Cleveland, Ohio. “It’s a job of, you do what you’ve got to do. Every day is a little bit different.”
This is big week for Walter, who is assisted by Kyle Harrigan, the North Course superintendent, and Jeremy Sanchez, the South Course superintendent.
It’s the week of the Fortinet Championship, a PGA Tour event, Sept. 11–17. The $8.4 million tournament, the kickoff event for the FedExCup Fall schedule, will be played on Silverado’s North Course. It’s a par-72, 7,123-yard layout that was re-designed in 2011 by Johnny Miller, a 25-time PGA Tour champion. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1998.
It’s an even busier week for Walter, who gets to his office, along with Harrigan and Sanchez, very early, at 3:30 a.m.
“Depending on what’s going on, I’m here,” said Walter. “It’s one of those where you just have to be fluid and comfortable with constant change. The build started three weeks ago. Everything is ever evolving. As we’re reaching the finish line, it picks up pace every day as we get closer and closer.
“It’s a long week. So, to say I have a schedule, or this is when I go home, it’s when the job is done for the day.”
It’s a big job, doing all of the advance work, in preparation for the Fortinet Championship. The field of 156 players will be led by Max Homa, the tournament’s 2021 and 2022 champion, along with Justin Thomas, Stewart Cink, Jason Dufner, Zach Johnson, Geoff Ogilvy, Webb Simpson and Jimmy Walker.
Also in the field are Cameron Champ, Sahith Theegala, Andrew Putnam, Eric Cole, Brendon Todd and Cam Davis.
The winner of the Fortinet Championship will receive $1,512,000 and 500 FedEx Cup points.
Thursday’s first round and Friday’s second round start at 6:50 a.m., from the Nos. 1 and 10 tees. Play is expected to be completed those first two days by 7 p.m.
“Things are right on schedule, right where we want to be,” said Walter. “The build-out looks great. It’s moving along nicely. The course conditions are awesome, compared to last year, when this time last year, it was 113 degrees for I think four days straight. So, definitely a lot less stress on the turf.
“The weather, we really actually couldn’t ask for better. Everything is shaping up really well. The greens are right where we want them right now. They’re firming up nicely. And the speed is there. So, we’re right where we need to be right now.”
It’s a big team that Walter leads. There are 52 people working on the course. This includes the Silverado grounds crew. There are also several volunteers from the golf industry, including course superintendents, product support specialists, those in the sales field, and Troon corporate staff members who are in the agronomy department.
“We’ve got a really strong volunteer group — guys coming in from Arizona, Virginia, Hawaii, Palm Springs, Southern California. We’ve got a really, really wide base and some really talented people coming to help us,” said Walter.
Walter can’t say enough about the grounds staff at Silverado, a team that does a great job, day after day, taking care of two championship courses — tees, fairways, greens, bunkers, rough — and setting them up for play each day.
“Our staff is pretty well seasoned. They know the property very well,” said Walter. “They’re awesome. They’re the best around.
“We set out months ago, with a goal of where we need to be advance week, and basically laid out a plan on how we get there. Everyone just puts their head down and goes to work and knows exactly what’s expected of them. I can’t say enough good things about the staff.
“It’s great when a plan comes together.”
The North Course has been closed this past week, as it’s advance week for the Fortinet Championship.
“It’s one of those situations where I do truly love what I do. And I’m proud of Silverado,” said Walter. “I want Silverado to look the best it can. And that’s how we start every day. When we go home, we just want to be a little better than when we got here.”
There is a progression, of 3–4 weeks, of slowly transitioning off of overhead irrigation and on to hoses for hand watering, said Walter.
“You slowly do this dry down, of dialing back your water a little bit every couple of days, using just a little bit less, while increasing your hand watering to keep up with the dry spots,” he said.
The goal, he said, is to get firm and fast conditions for the North Course.
“We want the narrow fairways to play really firm. We want the place to play firm and fast,” said Walter.
The target for Monday’s pro-am is to have the greens at 11 ½ on the Stimpmeter.
“We’re just going to hold where we’re at right now. We’re achieving what we need to at the moment on greens,” said Walter.
The fairway heights will be cut to just under a half-inch.
The rough was mowed at 2 ½ inches this past week.
“We will not be mowing rough again,” said Walter, who anticipates the rough height at 3 ½ to 4 inches during the tournament.
The forecast from www.accuweather.com for the week calls for temperatures ranging from the high 50s to the mid-80s, with sunny conditions.
“If we had to pick it, that’s what we would want right now. So, it should allow us to dry down and it won’t get away from us being too hot or anything like that. So, we should hopefully stay nice and green while still playing firm and fast,” said Walter.
The North Course was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., and opened in 1955.
There is a lot of work that the grounds crew puts in early in the morning starting at 4 a.m. — mowing tees, fairways and greens, raking bunkers, putting pins in, setting up the course, setting up the range and practice green, doing some hand watering.
The goal is to be done by 7:30 a.m.
The grounds crew returns at 4:30 p.m. and works on the course until 8–8:30 p.m. It’s general cleanup, filling in divots in the fairway, repairing ball marks on greens, doing hand watering.
“Our goal this year is to have almost 20 people out hand watering in the afternoons. And that will be watering tees, greens, fairways and rough as needed,” said Walter.
Walter received an Associate of Applied Science degree in Turfgrass Management from Ohio State. He joined Silverado in May of 2022.
Before joining Silverado, he was at Potomac Shores Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, in Dumfries, Virginia.
Walter is a member of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. The GCSAA announced on its Twitter page, @GCSAA, that Sept. 12 is #ThankASuper Day.
“Silverado is a pretty cool piece of property,” said Walter. “There’s a lot of history here. It’s one of those golf courses that you can make play very difficult, but also be acceptable for the average Joe, and everyone can enjoy it equally.
“It’s a lot of fun and it’s very rewarding to be able to stretch our legs and show what the team can do, to get the conditioning to where we’re at, and provide what the PGA Tour expects, but also provide what our normal resort guests and membership expects when they come here.
“We get a week on TV and get to show what we’re capable of.”
