The PGA Tour puts a bow on the Florida swing this week with the Valspar Championship. Located in Palm Harbor, Florida, and played on the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort, Copperhead is often described as one of the Tour’s most trying tracks. Best known for the “Snake Pit,” the three-hole finishing stretch that can alter the scoreboard quickly, Copperhead plays fast and narrow. The elevation changes, and tree-lined fairways make it play more like a Carolina course than your prototypical Florida course.
Scoring opportunities are few and far between here, and each hole can be won or lost from the tee. Finding the small poa trivialis greens in regulation is a difficult task here and nearly impossible if you’re not in the fairway, so I’m putting a premium on ball striking this week. The unique dispersion of holes on this 7,340-yard Par 71 track is something to factor in as well, with five long Par-3s on tap each round, along with a shorter group of Par 4s, mainly in the 400-450 yardage range. I’m putting a premium on long iron play, focusing on golfers who thrive in the 200+ yard approach range. They’ve grown the rough out again this year as well, so the winning score will remain closer to -10 than what we’ve seen in the years prior to last year’s change.
For more course details, check out Ron’s course preview. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Here’s an important tidbit about Copperhead at Innisbrook Resort:
There have been two major agronomic changes that seem to be in response to the 2022 event being the lowest scoring in this tournament’s history. The first is that the PGA increased the rough height from 3″ to 3.75″. Secondly, the intermediate cut of rough around the greens was decreased from 72″ to 21″ to bring the rough closer to the greens.
Off the tee (OTT), players are only hitting fairways at a rate of 57.3%. With fairways averaging only 28 yards wide, they rank as the fifth-most narrow on Tour. Because of this, along with the numerous doglegs and forced layups that demand positional golf, players are forced to take less than driver. This results in a 34% relative decrease in average Driving Distance all the way down to 276 yards. Pebble Beach and Harbour Town are the only courses with a lower distance off the tee.
By sacrificing distance for accuracy off the tee, players will have approach shots of greater than 175 yards 52% of the time. They will need to be strong with their mid-to-long irons to have any chance for success. Approach play grades out as massively more important than any other area this week, with the last five winners finishing at an average of sixth overall in that metric. Innisbrook is most definitely a true second-shot course.
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There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game, and my goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting this week. Remember to check out the Rabbit Hole, our customizable stat database that can help you pair down your player pool each week.
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*Betting lines are accurate at the time of publication.
f684b2f3d4218ee06dad551b3bb2074bNoonan’s Valspar Championship Betting Targets
Tony Finau
I’ll admit that I’m overreacting to one good putting week from Tony Finau. After struggling to gain strokes putting for the better part of the past 12 months, Finau gained strokes putting last week at TPC Sawgrass. It mostly came in the third round, but he’s shown zero ceiling leading into last week, so I’ll take it’s encouraging nonetheless. The greens here at Copperhead are the same poa trivialis surface that Finau saw last week, and perhaps skipping Bay Hill and targeting this week’s event helped him hone in on the greens while away. He’s had some terrific putting performances in years past on this surface, which is featured at TPC Sawgrass, San Antonio, Harbour Town, and PGA West’s Stadium Course.
The rest of his game is dialed in. He leads the field in strokes gained approach over the past 24 rounds played and is third over the past 50 rounds. He’s gained strokes ball-striking at a rate that rivals Xander Schauffele, both in terms of consistency and ceiling. His increased club head speed in 2024 has led to increased distance and apex height, which matters less off the tee at Copperhead, but helps with holding the greens on the numerous long approach shots.
Finau was the only eligible golfer who didn’t play at Bay Hill a few weeks ago, opting to come to Innisbrook instead. That could be nothing but a pre-tournament footnote, but I find it interesting.
Keegan Bradley
Oh, Noonan’s on Keegs again. Cool. How original.
I get it, folks. I click on Keegs a lot, but I often feel like he’s priced below his floor relative to the field, and that’s the case again this week. Over the past two years, Bradley ranks third in this week’s field at courses with difficult scoring conditions. He’s also excelled at courses that require a high rate of less than driver off the tee, which is the case this week at Copperhead. He came out sixth in my model this week, pictured above.
Bradley is also an excellent long iron player and one of the best in this week’s field from 200+ yards out. He’s third in 200+ yard proximity from the fairways and ninth from the rough, which is inevitable here at Copperhead. He was tied for the lead heading into the final round here back in 2021 with eventual champ Sam Burns, so he’s familiar with what it takes to navigate this testing track.
- To Win: 45/1 Caesars
- Top 30: DraftKings
Daniel Berger
You have to look past the mediocre five starts to the 2024 season if you’re willing to back Daniel Berger right now, but I’m willing to bet on his pre-injury baseline, which makes this price extremely appealing. Berger has missed the cut in three of his five 2024 starts but has historically thrived on courses where his precision is rewarded, and Copperhead is one of those places.
For the sake of this exercise, here’s how 2020-2022 Daniel Berger stacks up against this week’s field from a strokes-gained standpoint:
He’s one of the best golfers in this field, and the rust and poor recent form is baked into this price.
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