The PGA Tour moves on from TPC Sawgrass across Florida to Tampa Bay this week for the Valspar Championship, the closing event on the Florida Swing and the one which will see the field look to tame the snake pit.
Peter Malnati emerged as a huge priced winner of this tournament a year ago and the American is back in the field looking to repeat his success. A solid field is up against him when you consider how close The Masters is looming on the horizon.
Recent Winners
2024 – Peter Malnati
2023 – Taylor Moore
2022 – Sam Burns
2021 – Sam Burns
2019 – Paul Casey
2018 – Paul Casey
2017 – Adam Hadwin
2016 – Charl Schwartzel
2015 – Jordan Spieth
2014 – John Senden
The Course
The Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort in Tampa Bay is the host venue once again this week. This is one of the toughest par 71s on the PGA Tour, made so difficult by the ‘Snake Pit’, the closing three holes which are among the hardest stretch of holes of the entire season. These holes can ruin many a good round but rarely is there much joy to be had in them. It is as hard a finish as you’ll find so it follows on nicely from the pressure cooker of last week.
The course is a par 71 measuring 7,352 yards and with the narrow fairways there is going to be quite a premium on accuracy. If you look through the roll of honour it is a list of great putters so there is a clue in that but tee-to-green strength is another feature of what is needed around here. There is not a single bomber on the recent winners list and that tells a tale heading into the tournament. The fairways are tight and the greens are small and very well protected. Look for tee to green machines who can putt well this week.
The Field
We are at that stage of the season where the fields naturally weaken a touch as the majority of the elite players managed their schedule ahead of the four matches which are about to come along in as many months but despite that we still have a number of household names on the PGA Tour teeing it up with the home charge headed up by Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas and Sam Burns and also includes the defending champion Peter Malnati.
There is usually a strong European contingent at this tournament for whatever reason and that remains the case for this renewal as well with Tommy Fleetwood leading that alongside his Ryder Cup teammates Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry and Viktor Hovland. Stephan Jaeger and Thomas Detry are other Europeans in the field while the international charge will be led by Tom Kim but includes the likes of Corey Conners, Adam Scott, Byeong-Hun An, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Ryan Fox. We’ve seen worse fields this season.
Market Leaders
Tommy Fleetwood is an 11/1 favourite to win the tournament this week but if you take that price you’ll certainly be hoping his putter works better than it did in the TGL semi-final on Monday night. Fleetwood does have finishes of T16 and T3 around here in his two efforts and that isn’t a surprise because of the quality of his tee-to-green game but the winner this week will need to get something in the hole and the putter is enough of a concern for me to swerve him at this price.
Sepp Straka is the second favourite to come out on top this week. He can be backed at 16/1 to lift silverware for the second time this season. The mere fact that he is number two on the FedExCup rankings tells us the start to the season that the Austrian has made and with him excelling on tight courses where finding small greens is the primary aim it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if he contends this week. He doesn’t have a great record here though which puts me off getting involved at the price.
Xander Schauffele would have been a considerable favourite for this event if he hadn’t missed a month or so with a rib injury earlier in the season. As it is he is 18/1 to win the tournament. He hasn’t really offered up much in the two starts he has had since the injury but a T12 and a T5 in two efforts here tells us he has the ideal profile for the track. He looked like his touch was coming back in TGL earlier in the week, although how much you can tell from indoor golf remains to be seen. We could be looking back at 18/1 being a huge price at the end of the week but I’d like a performance before I get involved.
If you shop around you can get 20/1 on Justin Thomas to win the tournament. He was heating it up around Sawgrass last week when he put together that incredible second round but then he went a little too quiet against a bit too quickly for my liking. He has three top 10 finishes around here but you would expect a player of the quality he has carried throughout the years to be in contention here. I’m not sure he is at those levels though which is enough of a concern for me to sit this one out.
Main Bets
Sam Burns hasn’t had much form to speak of since he made the top 10 at The Sentry earlier in the year but he has a brilliant record around here and he is hard to ignore as a result of that. While Burns has struggled since the opening week of the year, the flat stick hasn’t let him down so if a return to a place where he has won twice inspires him to come out with his best game then he could be hard to beat. Those two wins aren’t the only good results he has had here. He was sixth here in 2023 so this is very much a course he enjoys. The indifferent form of the year might have lessened his expectations but either way I can’t ignore him.
Lucas Glover might be inconvenienced by going close at Sawgrass last week but he was never really in the challenge on the back nine on Sunday so I’m hoping that he has enough in the tank to go again here because this track should really suit a man who flushes it from tee to green. The reason why Glover went well at Sawgrass was because his putter was in good order and if that remains the case here, and a finish one outside the top 10 here last year suggests there is no reason why it couldn’t, then with the way he hits the ball from tee to green he has to be a factor here. I’ll pay to see how he goes.
Outsiders
Rico Hoey has put up some wonderful numbers from tee to green this season and that is largely the test around here so I’ll pay to see if he can get some putts to drop into the hole and he can get some decent stuff going from there. Hoey is fourth in total driving on the PGA Tour this season and sixth on greens in regulation and was fourth for ball striking at Sawgrass last week so he is hitting the ball incredibly well. The Filipino has had three fair efforts without anything special recently but he concluded with a 66 at Sawgrass last week and that makes me think he is coming here in good spirits. I’ll pay to see where that gets him.
Max McGreevy is the other one whose long game numbers have caught my eye this season. He was sixth for ball striking at Sawgrass last week which was including a third for greens in regulation so he is hitting the ball well. He was fourth at PGA National which is no bad thing and even though he carded a three-over round on Sunday at Sawgrass he still made it into the top 20 so he would have been much better off after three rounds. In a much weaker field, this ball striking machine can go really well if his positive strokes gained putting numbers hold up this week.
Tips
Back S.Burns to win Valspar Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Unibet (1/5 1-6)
Back L.Glover to win Valspar Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-8)
Back R.Hoey to win Valspar Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-8)
Back him here:
Back M.McGreevy to win Valspar Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 111.00 with Paddy Power (1/5 1-8)
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