The Valspar Championship Preview and Picks

THE PLAYERS Championship is in the books with Rory McIlroy winning in an anticlimactic three-hole aggregate playoff on Monday over J.J. Spaun. He became the eighth player to win twice at TPC Sawgrass and it has been a great start to the season for McIlroy who also won at Pebble Beach giving him some momentum in quest of a Major championship that has eluded him since the 2014 PGA Championship. The PGA Tour remains in Florida and heads to Palm Harbor for the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. This will be the 24th year of the Valspar that debuted in 2000 at Copperhead which is a par 71 that stretches 7,352 yards and like last week, it demands elite ball striking.

This is another positional course with narrow, tree-lined fairways which tends to yield below average driving accuracy and driving distance rankings. It once again makes Strokes Gained: Approach the top key stat this week along with SG: Around The Green and SG: Putting (Bermuda) right in the mix so it is nearly a duplicate of TPC Sawgrass in regard to what it takes to succeed. With five par threes that average 221 yards, Par 3s Gained: 200-225 Yards is also a key metric as to not lose ground on those holes. The three closing holes at Copperhead are among the toughest three-hole stretches on tour and the Snake Pit moniker is apropos as going even par on 16, 17 and 18 is rare.

Peter Malnati is the defending champion and an unlikely one as he went off at 300/1, the biggest underdog since 2014. Only four players have won here two times, most recently Sam Burns in 2021 and 2022 and he joined Paul Casey as the only players to defend after Casey did it in 2018 and 2019. Despite coming off THE PLAYERS and The Arnold Palmer Invitational the week before, the field is fairly strong which is usually the case here and 13 of the 25 players in the OWGR are teeing it up this week. The favorites under 30/1 are Tommy Fleetwood (11/1), Xander Schauffele (12/1), Sepp Straka (16/1), Justin Thomas (20/1), Tom Kim (22/1) and Sam Burns (22/1).

The weather messed around last week with windy conditions off and on and storms forcing a Monday finish and while the forecast looks dry this week, wind looks to play a major role on Thursday and Friday, namely Thursday afternoon and Friday morning where gusts will hit 30 mph. The Thursday AM/Friday PM draw looks to have a significant edge and those are the players we will target to avoid those gusty conditions.

Top four key categories this week:

Strokes Gained: Approach
Strokes Gained: Around The Green
Strokes Gained: Putting (Bermuda)
Par 3s Gained: 200-225 Yards

Each bet is Win/Top Five/Top Ten. The typical recommendation is 50%/25%/25% with odds, payouts and results based on a $1000 unit (easy round number for bookkeeping) on each of the following players. The payouts are listed right below the odds which are all from DraftKings:

Sam Burns
Odds: Win 2,200 ~ Top Five 400 ~ Top Ten 210
Payout: Win 11,000.00 ~ Top Five 1,000.00 ~ Top Ten 520.50

It has been an erratic start for Burns and he actually has been trending down, missing his first cut of the season last week but if there is a place to pick up his game, this is it. He has back-to-back wins here in 2021 and 2022 to go along with a T6 over his last four starts at the Valspar. His iron game has been abysmal this season, notably the last two starts, so we are going against the top key statistic but the course fit trumps that this week. He has been great off the tee and on the greens so get that SG: Approach back to where it was at the end of last year and he could be hoisting his third trophy here.

Michael Kim
Odds: Win 3,000 ~ Top Five 500 ~ Top Ten 250
Payout: Win 15,000.00 ~ Top Five 1,250.00 ~ Top Ten 620.50

Kim was a popular play last week in the betting and DFS markets but he missed the cut albeit by just one stroke so it was not a disaster. He was on fire prior to that as he finished T13 or better in his previous five starts including a T2, a solo fourth and a T6 and it was due to his SG: Approach and SG: Around The Green numbers. He was fine in those categories last week at TPC Sawgrass but he was -0.91 in SG: Off The Tee and that was an aberration as he was +SG in six of his first eight starts in that category. He came to the Valspar last year missing the cut in four of his previous five starts and finished a respectable T33.

Stephan Jaeger
Odds: Win 4,400 ~ Top Five 800 ~ Top Ten 360
Payout: Win 22,000.00 ~ Top Five 2,000.00 ~ Top Ten 900.00

Jaeger has missed two cuts this year which happened to be the only two starts where he as -SG: Approach. When his irons are on, he contends as when he has gained one or more strokes on approach, he has finishes of T6, T3 and T20, the latter coming last week at THE PLAYERS where he was in the top ten after the first and third rounds but a Sunday 75 did him in. He was not able to get off the tee as his irons were spot on and he can prosper at this point. He missed the cut in his first start here but finished T27 in 2023 where he was +SG in everything but putting. That was his issue in 2023 and early 2024 but he has completely turned that around.

Jacob Bridgeman
Odds: Win 5,000 ~ Top Five 850 ~ Top Ten 400
Payout: Win 25,000.00 ~ Top Five 2,125.00 ~ Top Ten 1,000.00

Hardly a household name, Bridgeman is putting together a solid season after a slow start. He missed the cut in three of his first four starts with a T21 at The American Express being the outlier where his putter was on fire. His iron play was dreadful in all four of those starts but he has flipped that as he has been +SG: Approach in his last four starts and it has turned into making the weekend in all four including a T2 at the Cognizant Classic and a T15 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. His putting remains above average and he is No. 14 in Strokes Gained: Total and while he missed the cut here last year, he was not in the same form.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout
Odds: Win 6,000 ~ Top Five 900 ~ Top Ten 400
Payout: Win 30,000.00 ~ Top Five 2,250.00 ~ Top Ten 1,000.00

Bezuidenhout missed the cut at THE PLAYERS as he had his worst putting performance since the 2023 PGA Championship and last week was a total anomaly as he had been +Strokes Gained: Putting in his previous 13 starts. He is a master short game player as he is No. 11 in Strokes Gained: Around the Green to go along with a No. 9 in putting and No. 6 in scrambling. The concern is his iron game as he has been -SG: Approach in six of his eight starts but this should come around at some time as he is normally above average. His T9 here last year with a positive approach game can bring that confidence back.

Results through THE PLAYERS Championship (7 Tournaments):

Win: -15,500
Top Five: -4,375
Top Ten: -225

SUBSCRIPTIONS