After a thrilling week of golf at TPC Sawgrass, with Cameron Young securing my second outright winner in three weeks, 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 quickly alter the scoreboard, 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 7,352-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. The layout forces a lot of less-than-driver decisions off the tee, yet we still see a consistently difficult ball-striking test with low fairway and greens-in-regulation rates. They’ve grown the rough out again this year, so the winning score will remain closer to -10 than during that couple-year window when we saw the winning score climb into the mid-to-high teens.
In 2023, two significant agronomic changes were made in response to the 2022 tournament, which recorded the lowest score in its history. First, the PGA increased the height of the rough from 3 inches to 3.75 inches. Second, the intermediate cut of rough around the greens was reduced from 72 inches to 21 inches, bringing the rough closer to the greens.
Off the tee, players hit the fairway on just 54.8% of tee balls last season. Considering that driver usage was at just 52.2%, 16.7% below an average PGA Tour event, you can quickly see how difficult it is off the tee at Copperhead. With fairways averaging just 28 yards in width, they rank as the fifth-most narrow on the Tour. This leads to a 43% relative decrease in average driving distance, which has dropped to 278.8 yards over the past five years. Only Pebble Beach and Harbour Town have lower driving distances off the tee.
By prioritizing accuracy over distance, players will face approach shots of greater than 175 yards more than 53% of the time. Additionally, this unique layout features five par 3s, none of which measure less than 190 yards. Players must excel with their mid- to long-irons to find success this week. Approach play is significantly more important than any other area this week, as the last five winners averaged sixth overall in this category. Innisbrook is undoubtedly a proper second-shot course.
For more course details, check out Ron’s course preview. It’s the best in the business, bar none. Also, don’t forget to check out our research tools, the Copperhead course stats, along with the Tournament Cheat Sheet.
Podcast: Apple | Spotify
YouTube: Betsperts Golf
Key Rabbit Hole Stats This Week:
- SG: Total (Last 2 Years, Difficult Scoring Conditions)
- SG: Ball-striking (Difficult/Very Difficult)
- SG: APP (Rolling Form, last 12, 36, and 75 rounds)
- SG: Ball-striking (OTT Club, Less than driver)
- SG: ARG (Long Rough, difficult to gain ARG)
- SG: Total (Comp Courses)
There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game. My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting in the outright market this week. Remember to check out the Rabbit Hole, our customizable stat database. It can help you pare down your player pool each week.
Utilize our Discord for up-to-the-minute lines and betting advice. My full card and live in-tournament bets will be posted there. Reach out if you need help getting started.
For outrights, I typically allot for 1.5 units, sometimes up to 2 for bigger events. I think this structure is important, and it helps steady the tides of outright betting. It prevents me from chasing, knowing that I’m positioned to profit if I can hit 5-6 outrights a season. It also helps me stake bets to a flat “to win” amount regardless of their outright price.
*Betting lines are accurate at the time of publication in Discord.
Noonan’s Valspar Championship Outright Targets
Xander Schauffele (16/1) e/w 3-places
I’m adding Xander to my card after Akshay Bhatia‘s withdrawal on Wednesday. Schauffele led the field in strokes gained approach last week at TPC Sawgrass, and he put on an absolute clinic at Copperhead last season, gaining an insane 11.28 strokes on approach for the week. If not for a few poor tee shots on Saturday, he’d have been in the mix.
In his 12 previous rounds played at Copperhead, Schauffele’s 1.52 SG: APP per round average laps the field, as does his 64.4% greens in regulation rate (field average was 55.3% last season).
Jacob Bridgeman (23/1)
Speaking of elite putters in great current form, Jacob Bridgeman is in a tier of his own right now. His lead-in form to his win at Riviera was terrific, and he hasn’t skipped a beat since. Bridgeman finished T5 at last week’s PLAYERS, and very easily could’ve been in the mix late on Sunday if not for a mistimed water ball or two on the 16th. Those are impacting his overall SG: APP numbers, but this is why watching what’s happening is sometimes just as impactful as what the numbers tell us.
Bridgeman was terrific off the tee last week, gaining an average of 0.77 strokes per round, with above-average marks in accuracy and distance from the edge of the fairway. When looking at our Floor/Ceiling view in the Rabbit Hole, highlighted in the image above, you’ll find it easy to want to back Bridgeman right now. Sure, form is fickle, and we never know when it’ll stop or start. But Copperhead at Innisbrook is not a place where out-of-form golfers typically come to find it. Bridgeman ranks among the top three in this week’s field in all of the different strokes gained ranges. I’m not leaning too much on course history this week, but Bridgeman’s T3 at last year’s Valspar certainly doesn’t hurt.
Ryo Hisatsune (46/1)
I’m going to ride the form wave again here, backing Ryo Hisatsune at a price that’s way too big, given his current form and fit for this golf course. Kudos to the folks who were able to scoop up the 66/1 available on DraftKings on Sunday, before it reopened closer to 35 in most places. Hisatsune finished T13 at last week’s PLAYERS, finishing second to Matt Fitzpatrick in SG: T2G at 2.69 strokes per round. Hisatsune is teeing it up every week, and that was his fourth T15 or better finish in the best six weeks.
Hisatsune has gained strokes tee-to-green and ball-striking in 12 straight measured events. The 23-year-old Japanese prodigy is not afraid to play aggressive golf and attack pins. While there’s a level of volatility that can come with that particular play style, it can also lead to ceiling-level outcomes, which is what we’re looking for in the world of golf outright betting. No one in this week’s field has given themselves more birdie-or-better looks inside 10 feet from 150-175 yards out this season than Ryo Hisatsune (20.7%). While we have more long approach shots than a standard PGA Tour event this week, we still see a lot in this range too (21.2% in 2025, 1.3% above the Tour average). But don’t fret, he’s an elite long iron player too, ranking among the top four inside 10 and 15 feet from 200+ yards out.
David Ford (125/1)
We shouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of ups and downs from a PGA Tour rookie, but there’s a lot to like about David Ford‘s game. The former top-ranked amateur will be comfortable playing on a narrow, undulating track lined with pinestraw after playing collegiately at UNC.
His profile to date since turning pro is one of exceptional skills off the tee, with above-average distance and accuracy, and elite short to mid-iron play. Being out of position off the tee is a non-starter at Copperhead, so I think Ford will be able to pick and choose his spots when he can take the clubhead cover off and send it, since he’s able to do so without sacrificing his accuracy at all. I played this as an each-way bet and probably wouldn’t have without it, but I like betting on top-tier pedigrees, and Ford certainly checks that box.
