Who Wins Valspar Golf Championship
All I can say is wow…. we pretty much half the field just got absolutely obliterated by likely the worst weather the Players Championship tournament has ever seen. If you were lucky enough to fill your betting card with the early-late tee times than you are probably sitting very pretty. If not, well, I’m sorry you had to witness your players on a virtually unbeatable course given the conditions. We still have a few outrights in play as of writing this so hopefully we can get a win! Anyways, onto the Valspar!
Players continue the Florida swing by heading 4 hours South for the Valspar Championship in Tampa, FL. The event takes place at Innisbrook Resort on the Copperhead Course which is a par 71 that plays roughly 7,340 yards. This course is known to be a player favorite, as evidenced by the field this year, and has a treacherous finishing stretch of 3 holes known as the snake pit. The snake pit consists of one of the hardest holes on the PGA tour, the par 4 16th known as “Mocassin,” followed by a long par 3 known as “Rattler,” and coming to a head at the par 4 18th appropriately called “Copperhead.” This stretch should make for an epic finish on Sunday, especially if the leaderboard is crowded.
As we take a look at the course layout and start to identify our key stats the first thing you’ll notice is that just about every fairway is tree-lined and there are a few holes where water comes into play right off the fairway. Then we notice that driving accuracy here is a little bit below tour average and GIR% is well below tour average by almost 6%. That all tells me that driving accuracy is important here. Now, I don’t mean that in the traditional sense of hitting fairways, well at least not entirely. Hitting fairways is great, but I more-so mean that it’s important to miss in the right spots. Playing out of the rough here is manageable but you need to have the right angles into the greens. So, I’m most likely going to be avoiding guys that really struggle to control their driver and fairway metals.
Next up we’ll look at some key distances. First thing we notice is that there are 5 par 3s on this course and 3 of them fall within the distance of 200-225 yards while one of them comes in at 195. What makes these even more important is that 3 of them fall within the 9 hardest holes on the course. Next, we have 3 par 4s that fall into the 450-500 yard range with 2 more coming in at 445. The reason I think we should focus on this range is because a few of these par 4s will play longer than their yardage and the approach shot yardage distribution tells us that. Positioning is important here and players won’t be able to just gear up and rip driver on many of these holes, they’ll need to dial it back for position. This correlates with the approach shot yardage distribution chart showing us that nearly half of the approach shots on this course will come in from over 175 yards.
That’s why the next thing we’ll look at is Strokes Gained: Approach with a focus on 175-200 yards and we’ll also look at 175+ yards overall to a slightly lesser extent. As per usual on the courses that play longer, a lot of the scoring will be done on the par 5s and so we will be looking at Par 5 Scoring as well. Next, we’ll be looking at Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green because in past top finishers we’ve seen a very well-rounded game. We really want to lean into players that can gain strokes in all areas, or at least not lose a ton of strokes in any one of them. This is an event that is very hard to win if you’re not putting well and if you can’t get up and down for par saves. Lastly, as always, we want good ball-strikers. It’s a little more prevalent this week than some others because of how important an all-around solid tee-to-green game is.
Traditionally this event has played pretty difficult, and the winning scores were somewhere between 9-12 under. Last year, however, Sam Burns lit the course up for a 17 under winning score. I imagine with many players coming here from The Players and having just dealt with some absolutely crazy conditions that this will be a breath of fresh air. I think we can expect a winning score around 14-15 under, barring more insane weather conditions. Now, with The Players finishing up today (hopefully) I do expect we’ll see some players withdraw so be sure to check and double check your bets and DFS lineups leading up the event start.
Key Stats
Driving Accuracy
Par 4 scoring 450-500 yards
Par 3 scoring 200-225 yards
SG: Approach, w/focus on proximity of 175-200 yds
SG: Par 5 Scoring
SG: Tee-To-Green
SG: Ball Striking
Betting Odds
Our Top 3 Picks:
1. Justin Thomas: JT has really found another level of ball striking, and it was on display at The Players. Tricky greens should work in his favour. @6/1
2. Viktor Hovland: Hovland had some tremendous highs, including an ace, at The Players, but he also had some sloppy mistakes. @10/1
3. Joaquin Niemann: The Copperhead sometimes tunnels wind, making it a difficult ball striking challenge. Niemann’s ball flight is an edge there. @22/1
Best Golf Betting Picks and Preview
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