After a grueling and extended PLAYERS Championship, the Florida Swing concludes with the Valspar Championship. Located in Palm Harbor, Florida, and played on the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort, it is one of the most complete tests of golf 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. The increased 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.
With the Masters fast approaching, golfers have limited time left to fine-tune their skills for the first major of the year. Even so, with the PLAYERS event dragging into Monday, expect numerous top-ranked players who are scheduled to play such as Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas to possibly withdraw.
Course Overview
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 out at 7,340 yards. Designed by Larry Packard in 1974, it underwent a slight renovation in 1999, followed by a more moderate one in 2015. With its extremely tight fairways combined with numerous doglegs and a majority of holes being on the longer side, Innisbrook sets up as one of the toughest courses golfers will play each year. Players hitting less-than-driver off the tee only stretches out the course even further.
While the scoring environment may be challenging with the winning score averaging only 11-under par over the past 12 years, it is also a fair test of golf. And according to anonymous player surveys, it is one of their favorite courses in which to play. Packard explained why he thought this was so by remarking, “Copperhead is a tough golf course but it is fair. I designed it so 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.”
Six of the past eight years, scoring at Innisbrook has been 10-under par or lower. Over the past five events, scoring has been 0.81 shots over par, ranking it as the fifth-toughest annual course on Tour. Scoring is so tough here that it has yielded the second-fewest amount of eagles and the fewest birdies per 72 holes.
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. The hilliness of the course makes 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.
A unique aspect of this course is that are five par-3s instead of the typical four. Each measuring 195 yards or longer and they are among the most difficult on Tour, averaging 3.13 per hole. Each green is small and surrounded by thick rough or water. Those who can simply survive 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 among the toughest on Tour, averaging 4.77 strokes. While they offer very few eagle opportunities, they are still the best option for making birdies.
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 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.
Grasses this week are the exact same as last week at TPC Sawgrass. With the Bermuda grass still dormant, fairways and rough are overseeded rye. The rough is on the thicker side here at Innisbrook at 3”. Greens are Poa Trivialis and run very smooth and pure.
Key Course Stats Compared to Tour Average
*Green = easier
*Red = more difficult
Strokes Gained Analysis
Off the tee (OTT), players are only hitting fairways at a rate of 56.9%. With fairways averaging only 28 yards wide, they rank as the 5th 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 30% 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. The fact that driving accuracy is still 15% tougher than average even with players clubbing down shows how challenging Innisbrook is off the tee. 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 inconsequential here compared to SG: Approach. In fact, the last five winners here have an average rank of 34th in SG: OTT.
Innisbrook is annually one of the toughest courses to hit the green in regulation. The 56.2% rate is one of the lowest on Tour. It is also the 8th toughest annual course to gain strokes on approach. With greens less than 6,000 square feet on average, along with being very firm and undulated, average proximity to the hole is also difficult here.
By sacrificing distance for accuracy off the tee, players will have approach shots of greater than 175 yards 54% 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 7th overall in that metric. Innisbrook is most definitely a true second-shot course.
According to DataGolf, Innisbrook ranks in the top half of the easiest courses to gain strokes around the green. This is borne out with a scrambling percentage that is 19% easier than Tour average. That being said, with so many greens being missed, players will still need to rely on their short game to save par.
Finally, while there is tricky sloping on some of the greens, putting is easier than average in many of the sub-categories. One-putt percentage is one of the highest on Tour at 42.3%, while 3-putt percentage is also among the easiest at only 2.4%. 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 17 of the top 18 players on the leaderboard last year gained strokes putting. The Poa Trivialis greens run at 12 on the stimp-meter 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 are TPC Scottsdale, TPC Sawgrass, TPC San Antonio and PGA West Stadium.
Featured Image Credit: Steve Pike