After a Rory McIlroy victory in a Monday finish at THE PLAYERS Championship, the Florida Swing concludes with the Valspar Championship. While Innisbrook has four courses available to golfers, the Copperhead course is the one that has hosted this tournament since its inception on Tour in 2000. Located just outside of Tampa in Palm Harbor, Florida, Innisbrook is one of the most underrated courses on the PGA Tour and encompasses one of the most complete tests of golf that players will face all year. Featuring narrow pine tree-lined fairways and rolling terrain combined with the surrounding lakes, proper positioning off the tee is paramount. 2023’s champion, Taylor Moore remarked, “This place is a ball-striker’s kind of paradise – fairway and green it to death.”
Players will be challenged as they navigate numerous tight doglegs, elevation changes, 74 well-positioned bunkers, six holes with water danger, rough approaching four inches, and difficult pin positions. The course has consistently played over par and ranks as the tenth most challenging annual course on Tour. The number of trees and elevation changes make it feel as if one is in the hill country of North Carolina. As course architect, Larry Packard, said himself back in 2012, “When you play Copperhead you don’t even feel like you are in Florida. When you stand on the first hole and look down the fairway you are on an elevated tee and looking down the fairway lined with pine trees on both sides. It feels more like the Carolinas than Florida.”The makeup of the par-71 course is also far from traditional as there are five par-3s along with four par-5s. The course culminates at the infamous “Snake Pit” with two difficult par-4s sandwiched between the challenging par-3 17th.
Similar to TPC Sawgrass, positional golf is once again the name of the game as Innisbrook mitigates almost any advantage that bombers have off the tee. But this is not your typical “short” course. With 53% of approach shots coming from over 175 yards, players will need to be sharp with their long-distance approach game.
2013 winner, Kevin Streelman summed up the course quite well. “On this golf course, you’ll make some bogies pretty quickly. A lot of players would say it’s their favorite course in Florida that we play. They love it because of shot playability. You hit everything from 4-iron to driver off the tees, and shape them in both directions. You have par 5s you can go for and some you lay back. You have to be so exact where you leave it. There’s no let-up out there but it’s very fair at the same time. You got to man up and hit golf shots.”
The Field
The Valspar Championship kicks off the final three-event stretch leading up to the Masters. Coming off consecutive “Signature” events, many of the highest-ranked players typically rest this week and begin private preparation for the year’s first major. But this week’s Valspar might be one of the best ever as 23 of the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking are in the field including Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, Sam Burns, Sepp Straka, and Shane Lowry. Past Valspar champions in the field include last year’s longshot winner Peter Malnati along with Taylor Moore, Adam Hadwin, Jordan Spieth, Luke Donald, and Gary Woodland.
Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead) – History
Businessman, Harvey Jones had always dreamed of founding a golf course in Florida. In the late 1960s, he decided the time was right and began working with realtors throughout the state to find the perfect plot of land. On one specific visit to the Tampa area, Jones was out walking one of the recommended properties when he spotted some land to the south on the other side of a barbed wire fence. Jumping the fence for a closer look, Jones knew this was the spot. Although the land was not for sale, Jones eventually acquired the property and they broke ground in 1969.
The Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club officially opened for play in 1970 with the Island Course which was designed by architect Larry Packard. Three more courses would eventually be built by Packard on the property with the Copperhead Course becoming the most famous. Completed in 1974, the Copperhead Course first hosted a PGA Tour event in 2000 named the Tampa Bay Classic. With the exception of 2001 (September 11 attacks) and 2020 (COVID-19), the event has been held annually at Innisbrook ever since.
It underwent a slight renovation in 1999, followed by a moderate restoration in 2015. In the most recent one, the course’s fairways and rough were replaced and each green was rebuilt. The bunkering was also reshaped to stay true to Packard’s original design. Greens were restored to their original size to allow for additional pin placements.
Finish Position and Strokes Gained History at Innisbrook Resort (2016-2024)
This includes the average finish position and Strokes Gained per round since 2016 for each of the categories. Players are sorted by SG: Total. Innisbrook is the 21st-most (out of 44) predictive annual course on Tour.
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Course Features
Sitting on a lovely stretch of property on the Pinellas Peninsula, only minutes from the Gulf of Mexico near Tampa Bay, the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort is a par-71 track measuring 7,352 yards. With its extremely tight fairways combined with numerous doglegs and a majority of holes on the longer side, Innisbrook sets up as one of the most demanding courses golfers will play each year. Players hitting less-than-driver off the tee only stretches out the course even further.
Innisbrook demands the ability to hit every type of shot. Said Zach Johnson on the equality of the course, “The beauty of this golf course is that we have seen individuals that hit it left-to-right, right-to-left, maul it and absolutely kill it, and guys that plot their way around. We’ve seen the Furyks win. Sean O’Hair hits it long. Paul Casey is not short. So we have seen every style of golf win here and that’s the beauty of a really good golf course. I feel like it separates and rewards quality golf.”
While the scoring environment may be challenging with the winning score averaging 12-under par over the past dozen years, it is also a fair test of golf. According to anonymous player surveys, it is one of their favorite courses in which to play. Packard explained why he thought this was so: “Copperhead is a tough golf course but it is fair. I designed it so that if you hit a good shot you will be rewarded. There are no gimmicks. I wanted you to have to use every club in your bag.” Scoring is so tough here that it has yielded the second-fewest amount of eagles and the fewest birdies per 72 holes.
Jordan Spieth had this to say on the course in general. “It’s a very difficult golf course. Guys that come out and play well here are likely to play well on the harder courses and the bigger tournaments just because that kind of course suits their game more. You have to work the ball both ways here. It requires all sorts of shots, punch shots, launching it in the air, and obviously some discipline on the greens. It’s tough to hit the fairways and the greens. Greens in regulation will be a very important stat.”
Along with tight fairways and several water hazards, the numerous elevation changes, tricky bunkers, and sloping greens all combine to make Innisbrook a difficult challenge. Though there are six holes with water in play, they are not a huge trouble areas as Innisbrook ranked 37th out of 40 courses in penalty strokes last year.
There are some sizeable elevation changes from tee-to-green, both uphill and downhill. For example, the clubhouse is located on a hill so both the 1st and 10th holes are downhill shots and both the 9th and 18th holes are back up the hill. The undulations make it tough to manage distance control and forces players to hit numerous blind approach shots.
The course also utilizes doglegs on 12 different holes to force players to shape their shots both ways. It even features four “double doglegs,” which is a signature feature of courses designed by Packard. It’s a navigator’s course,” said NBC golf analyst Mark Rolfing. “You cannot overpower the course. It’s all about the angles.”
Grasses this week are the same as last week at TPC Sawgrass. With the Bermuda grass still dormant, fairways and rough are overseeded rye. Greens are overseeded with Poa Trivialis. Although with the warmer temperatures, as March progresses, some of the Bermuda strain will most likely be creeping through. The overseeded rough is 3.75″. Starting in 2023 and continuing this year the intermediate cut of rough around the greens was decreased from 72″ to 21″ to bring the rough closer to the greens.
Hole Preview
While there are six holes with water danger, there is nowhere close to the amount of risk/reward holes compared to TPC Sawgrass. In fact, as caddie Ted Scott said about Innisbrook, “To play good around here you’re going to have to play boring golf.” One unique aspect of this course is that there are five par-3s instead of the typical four. Each measures 195 yards or longer and they rank as the ninth most difficult group on Tour, averaging 3.10 strokes per hole. Each green is small and surrounded by thick rough or water. Those who can simply survive and avoid bogeys on this set of holes will have a huge advantage on the field.
Five of the par-4s play at 445 yards or longer. Most will force players to club down off the tee, leaving players with mid-to-long irons into small green complexes. The par-5s also rank as the fourth toughest on Tour, averaging 4.74 strokes. While they offer very few eagle opportunities, they are still the best option for making birdies as they are the only holes on the course that have historically played under par.
The closing stretch, known as the Snake Pit, is one of the most challenging on Tour. The 16th hole is a long par-4 with an extremely narrow fairway and water on one side. Following that is the 215-yard, par-4 17th that has a tiny green surrounded by bunkers and trees on both sides. The stretch concludes with the par-4 18th, which has one of the most difficult elevated sloping greens anywhere. All three holes feature over an 18% bogey rate and under a 10% birdie rate. No winner has ever played the Snake Pit at better than even par for the tournament.
Strokes Gained Analysis
Off the Tee
Off the tee, players are only hitting fairways at a rate of 56%. With fairways averaging only 26 yards wide, they rank as the fourth-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 huge decrease in average Driving Distance down to 278 yards. Pebble Beach and Harbour Town are the only courses with a lower distance off the tee.
Said Ryan Moore, “I like that it has angles. There’s not a lot of gimmie tee shots on this golf course. There’s always trouble, you have to control the golf ball and curve it the proper direction.” With only 53% of tee shots hit with driver, one of the best “Less Than Driver” golfers, Henrik Stenson added, “It’s a course where you position yourself off the tee quite a lot. You have to lay back unless you want to try and thread a few of the tee shots. So, quite a few 2-irons and 4-woods, 3-woods off the tee.”
The fact that driving accuracy is still tougher than average even with players clubbing down shows how challenging Innisbrook is off the tee. Golfers who are wild will end up either in the thick rough or with tree trouble and will be forced to punch out. With bomb and gauge tactics unsuccessful here, and almost everyone laying up to the same spots in the fairway, SG: OTT ranks out to be rather inconsequential compared to SG: Approach.
While the last two winners (T. Moore and Malnati) were both ranked in the top-5 in OTT for the week, the previous five winners have an average rank of 59th with Sam Burns ranking 104th in 2022 after losing a full stroke in this area. Six of the last nine winners ranked outside the top-50 in driving accuracy for the week. Because almost everyone is following the same recipe of clubbing down, Innisbrook is the toughest course on Tour to actually gain strokes off the tee.
Approach
Innisbrook is annually one of the toughest courses to hit the green in regulation. Greens are typically firm, and the 57% GIR rate is one of the lowest on Tour. It is one of the most important courses to simply find the green on approach. Said Bubba Watson who finished fourth here in 2019, “You have to pick and choose your battles. Around here it wasn’t so much of putting as it was hitting the greens in regulation. So try to hit fairways and hit wherever you can to get on the green. It’s about greens in regulation here.” It is also the tenth-toughest annual course to gain strokes on approach. With greens smaller than average, firm conditions, tricky pin placements, and subtle undulations, proximity to the hole with longer irons is a challenge.
By sacrificing distance for accuracy off the tee, players will have approach shots of greater than 175 yards 53% 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 six winners finishing at an average of sixth overall in that metric. Innisbrook is most definitely a true second-shot course. It is also this paradox of “less than driver” off the tee combined with lengthy approach shots that make Innisbrook one of the toughest scoring courses on Tour.
Around the Greens and Putting
While historically Innisbrook has ranked on the easier side in strokes gained around the green, the last two years were much tougher than average due to the thick rough being moved closer to the green surfaces. Scrambling decreased from 66.7% in 2022 to a combined 60% in the last two years. With such a low GIR% to begin with, players will need to rely on their short game to save par.
While there is tricky sloping on some of the greens, putting is easier than average in many of the categories. One-putt percentage is among the highest on Tour at 43%, while 3-putt percentage is also among the easiest at only 2.23%. As Jordan Spieth commented, “The greens aren’t very severe here. They can be quick in certain places where they can put pins, but they’re not going to be greens where you really worry too much about your speed control. You can be aggressive putting here which is nice.”
Also, because the winning score is on the lower side, this event does not turn into a putting contest where players have to gain strokes on the greens in order to compete. That being said, putting still matters as 88% of the top-25 finishers in the last four tournaments here have gained strokes with the flatstick. Each of the last 13 winners has ranked inside the top 12 in putting that week.
The Poa Trivialis greens run at 12 on the stimpmeter and are some of the smoothest surfaces on Tour. When building putting rankings this week, make sure to only use the other courses that use the same grass type. Those courses include TPC Scottsdale, TPC Sawgrass, TPC San Antonio, Harbour Town, and PGA West Stadium.
Most Important Stats For Success at Innisbrook
*In order of importance
- SG: APP
- DFEF (Distance From Edge of Fairway)
- Bogey Avoidance
- Scrambling
- Good Drive%
- Par 5 Scoring
- SG: Putting (Poa Trivialis/Overall)
- Proximity 175+ yards
- SG: OTT on Difficult OTT/Less Than Driver courses
- SG: Total on Difficult Scoring courses
Key Rabbit Hole Filters
- Course Region: Florida
- Scoring Conditions: Difficult/Very Difficult
- Greens Surface: Poa Trivialis
- Rough Surface: Rye
- Rough Length: Long
- Gain OTT: Very Difficult
- OTT Club Type: Less Than Driver
- Fairway Accuracy: Difficult
- Missed Fwy Penalty: High
- Gain APP: Difficult
- GIR Accuracy: Difficult
- Par 5 Scoring: Difficult
- Scrambling Rough: Difficult
Weather Forecast – Palm Harbor, FL
