Round 2 Betting and Showdown Picks - 2022 Valspar Championship

Sam Burns returned to the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort and shot a 7-under 64 to share the lead with three other players after his first round back as defending champion. He shares the lead with Tour veterans Adam Hadwin and Jhonattan Vegas, and the well-traveled David Lipsky. On a day with perfect weather conditions and soft greens from the excessive recent rainfall, players lit up the scoreboard with birdie after birdie. On a course that has averaged 0.81 shots over par per round over the past five events, it played 1.09 shots under par on Thursday. With winds increasing tomorrow from light in the morning to around 10-20 MPH as the afternoon wave is teeing off, it appears the morning wave will have a weather advantage. In fact, Data Golf gives the morning wave a 0.69 stroke edge.

Weather Forecast

Relevant Post-Round 1 Player Quotes

*Quotes courtesy of ASAP Sports Transcriptions

Sam Burns: I think the golf course, the greens are really receptive with the rain we’ve gotten the last week. Yeah, I think the golf course will continue to firm up after we get some sun and wind and I think it’s going to play really well the next few days.

Adam Hadwin: It definitely fits my eye. It’s kind of similar to courses I grew up on, kind of through the trees. You got to work the golf ball both ways. You got to be in position off the tee, otherwise, you get blocked out on certain holes. I also think, kind of my last comment there, rewarding patience. I think that’s kind of how I play golf. That’s usually when I’m at my best, just kind of plodding along, not trying to do anything too fancy, center the greens, hit as many as possible, and just keep giving myself looks. I think this place rewards that and can kind of punish some aggressiveness at times.

Justin Thomas: These greens are very tough to read to where the grain is very subtle and it goes a lot of different ways. They do a great job with the pin positions of kind of putting them on little subtle spots that maybe stop breaking when they get to the hole or whatever. And man, I hit a lot of really, really good, I mean, probably five, six, seven putts today felt like that easily could have gone in that didn’t.

Danny Lee: It’s very straightforward, there’s not much to it, you just got to hit a good shot off the tee and second shot, sometimes there’s a few—if you hit it in the left part of the fairway you got to shape your, there are some shape shots, because of the tree line a little bit. But there’s not much to it if you just keep it straight I think you’re going to have a lot of birdie opportunities.

Brooks Koepka: It’s a tougher golf course. I think it’s one of those ones where you got to put it in the fairway. You got to be a good ball-striker around this place to play well. I think that’s suiting me. Some areas around the green seem like they might not be the best place to miss it, but they really are. I wouldn’t say there’s like adjustments, it’s just more about understanding where to miss it. The more and more you play and the more and more you just don’t want to be short-sided out there. The majors are always different. I don’t know, I always feel something different. It gets my blood flowing. I don’t know, it’s tough to explain. I feel different every major week, so it’s kind of the same thing. I was actually thinking about it today it would be one of the first times in like five years I’ve been healthy.

Dustin Johnson: The course is pretty much right there in front of you, so you can learn it if you spend enough time out there. But, yeah, I mean, for the first time, I don’t know the stats, but I can’t imagine there are too many first-time winners there, just because you do need to know and understand the golf course a good bit to have a chance. Being comfortable on the holes, where to hit it I think is probably the biggest thing. It’s more about the misses there. Where can you miss it and still have a chance to make a par or just to be able to get up-and-down because there’s a lot of holes and a lot of flags where even if you hit a great shot and it goes just a little bit too far or if you come up a hair short or something, you don’t have any chance to get up-and-down.

Current Betting Favorites

Sam Burns +500
Justin Thomas +650
Dustin Johnson +1200
Jhonattan Vegas +1800
Collin Morikawa +1800
Best Current Outright Value: Shane Lowry +8000 FanDuel

Shane Lowry is 2-under par heading into the second round on Friday. Not only was he ninth in the field in ball-striking during the first-round, including gaining 2.5 on approach, but he also tees off early at 8:24 AM in the much calmer wind conditions. He is coming off two top-13 finishes where he has been on fire with his irons and off the tee, gaining a combined 16.2 strikes ball-striking.

Round 2 Betting Selections

*Betting lines accurate at the time of publication.

Justin Thomas (-115) Over Kevin Kisner and Carlos Ortiz

After gaining 4.6 shots ball-striking at THE PLAYERS last week, Justin Thomas gained 4.6 in the first round alone, as he peppered one flagstick after another. If he would have putted to baseline average he could have been two shots better than the 5-under score he finished with. Both of his opponents, Kevin Kisner and Carlos Ortiz, struggled mightily in the most important areas, losing a combined 2.5 strokes ball-striking. Thomas is one of the best players on Tour in historical second-round scoring and heads into Friday with the largest Strokes Gained Rating edge of 3.83.

Risk: 2 Units on MGM.

Dustin Johnson (+125) Over Bubba Watson and Jason Day

Coming off a spectacular course-record tying performance at the fourth round of the PLAYERS where he gained 4.9 shots ball-striking, Johnson continued his stellar play on Thursday gaining another 3.9. If not for his flat stick letting him down, he would be much closer to the top of the leaderboard. Both Watson and Day struggled ball-striking and overachieved slightly on the greens. One of the best “wind” players in the game, expect DJ to outperform both opponents in Friday’s windier afternoon round.

Risk: 1 Unit on MGM.