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 Bermudagrass 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, mostly 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 this year as well, so I think we’ll see the winning score closer to -10 than what we’ve seen in years past.
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 are two major agronomic changes for this year’s tournament that seem to be in response to last year’s Valspar being the lowest scoring in this tournament’s history. The first is that the PGA has 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.
My goal with this piece is to touch on the golfers I’m targeting this week. There are millions of ways to bet on this beautiful game, so I’ll share my opinion on the best way to bet on each golfer in my player pool at this week’s event. When pricing out finishing position bets (T5, T10, T20s, etc.), I’ll often lean towards BetMGM even if there’s a better number elsewhere because of MGM’s advantageous dead-heat rules. So know the rules of the books that you’re betting on!
Please take advantage of the Discord feature and community. It’s the best way to get up-to-the-minute lines and advice, and if you need help getting started, please reach out. That’s where my full card will be posted, along with any live in-tournament bets from myself or other contributors. Betting markets are fluid, but I’ll note the best number available at the time of this writing.
*Betting lines are accurate when posted in Discord.
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Noonan’s Valspar Championship Betting Targets
Adam Hadwin
I like the blend of recent form, and course fit this week for Adam Hadwin. He finished T13 last week at TPC Sawgrass but ranked fifth in SG: T2G on the week, gaining strokes in each round. He’s been an above-average putter every year that he’s been on the PGA Tour, so I’m expecting a better performance from him on the greens at Copperhead after losing two strokes on the greens last week at The PLAYERS.
In terms of what stats matter to me this week, Hadwin ranks inside the top ten in SG: APP, Par 5 scoring, and Good Drive % over the past 36 rounds. He’s finished inside the top 12 here in three of his past five starts, including a win back in 2017, so he’s shown an ability to successfully navigate his way around this difficult course.
Davis Riley
Similar to Adam Hadwin, the course fit for Davis Riley here at Copperhead lines up well. He missed the cut last week at TPC Sawgrass, but he finished T8 in his previous start at Bay Hill, which has a lot of overlap with this week’s event in terms of the skill set it takes to be successful at Copperhead.
Over the past 36 rounds, Riley ranks inside the top 25 in SG: APP, Par 5 scoring, Good Drive %, Proximity from 200+ yards, and scrambling from long rough. He’s checking all the boxes that I’m looking for this week, and the price is more than fair at 40/1.
Wyndham Clark
I’ve already laid out the key stats for the week with Hadwin and Riley, but when I put them all together, Wyndham Clark came out on top for me this week using our new Stat Database. (It’s in beta, it’s still a work in progress, but go use it!)
Clark has made ten straight cuts, including multiple T10s dating back to October’s ZOZO Championship. He ranks fourth in this field in SG: Ball-striking and second in total strokes gained per round over the past 36 rounds. He’s just playing good golf right now and should benefit from a slightly softer field this week.
FanDuel Finishing Position Parlay
Justin Suh and Justin Rose – T40 (+148)
This is a relatively new entry to the space, thanks to our friends at FanDuel. I played a number of these last season with a 9.85% ROI, so I’ll continue it this season. If it’s not for you, feel free to skip it.
Unlike most other books I’m familiar with, FanDuel allows you to parlay finishing position bets. Now, the very premise of the bet is flawed because the expected value is negative since players are competing for the same finishing positions. If the bet is two T40s like this one, when one leg of your parlay finishes above the threshold, there’s now one less spot available in that range for the other leg(s) to also come in. I know the math is terrible. Spare me. But let’s be honest. Some bets are just fun, and these are fun for me.
These are the two golfers that didn’t make my outright card but profile as great plays this week, both in terms of recent form and course fit. You can add Gary Woodland (-130) and make it really spicy, bringing you up to +338, but that’s not for the faint of heart.
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