Valspar Championship Betting Preview

I'm exhausted. What a week (was it only a week?) at the Players Championship! Between the stops and starts and delays it's a small miracle that they were able to finish on Monday. I was convinced we would be playing into Tuesday. They were able to finish round 3 on Monday morning though and headed out for what was a fantastic finish Monday afternoon. Cam Smith showed that he has a huge set of you know what's going bonkers with the birdies (and bogeys) to win by one over the upstart Anirban Lahiri.

We get one more start in Florida before the tour heads to Texas before the Masters in April! This week the players head across the state to the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg metro for the Valspar Championship. This event is hosted at Innisbrook Resort on the Copperhead course.

Let's take a little bit of a deeper dive into the course before we get to the field and my bets for the week!

The Course:

Innisbrook Resort - Copperhead Course

Par: 36-35—71
Yardage: 7,340
Stimpmeter: 12

Architect (year): Larry Packard (1971)

Average Green Size: 5,822 sq. ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 74
Number of Water Hazards: 8
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 9

Greens: TifEagle bermuda overseeded
with Poa Trivialis .120”
Tees: Celebration bermuda overseeded
with ryegrass .400”
Fairways: Celebration bermuda overseeded
with ryegrass .450”
Rough: Celebration bermuda overseeded
with ryegrass 3”

• The fairways were not overseeded last
year due to the later date of the event
(finished May 2). They are overseeded this
year.
• With the earlier date, the ryegrass will not
be in transition like it was in May last year.

Recent Winners:

• 2021: Sam Burns (-17)

• 2020: Canceled due to COVID-19

• 2019: Paul Casey (-8)

• 2018: Paul Casey (-10)

• 2017: Adam Hadwin (-14)

Last year, Sam Burns took this event down for his first ever win, but with the weird COVID scheduling we saw this event in may, with overseeded fairways and that led to a bit more scoring than normal. With the move back to March, my assumption is that we will see a bit tougher test, something we are very familiar with here at the Valspar.

This is a really tough test of golf with narrow fairways and small greens you really need to be on your game here. Hitting fairways is massively important, but we get a bit higher fairway percentage than normal due to having to club down to avoid hazards on a lot of these holes. The average driving distance is 271 yards which is way below the norm.

With all of the layups players have, we see a huge increase in shots that over 175 yards. Want to be successful here? Better be good with a long iron in your hand. Weirdly that tends to be players who are shorter off the tee. They hit those longer shots more often and are typically better than the longer hitters. Any course that forces the bombers to lay up yet still makes them hit long irons into the greens is a huge benefit for short hitters.

Weather will likely play a factor again this week, but as of this writing there is no rain the forecast. We will get lots of wind though and that will wreak havoc on the field. I wouldn't be surprised to see the cut line be 3 or 4 over par.

Let's take a look at the favorites at the top of the betting board for this week:

The Favorites

Justin Thomas +1000 (Bet $100 to win $1000 Fanduel)

JT got screwed by the weather draw last week, having to play in the toughest conditions in round one and two. Had he gotten off to the start that guys like Smith and others were he would have been right in the mix for a win.

Three top 20's here over his career but has never really contended for the win. Don't love the odds here. Might jump on him if he has a bad putting round on Thursday and hope for some regression to the mean at +1800ish odds.

Viktor Hovland +1100 (Bet $100 to win $1100 Fanduel)

Viktor Hovland is a future world number one. You heard it here first. I don't think he's ever going to dominate like a Tiger Woods or even a Dustin Johnson when he won everything he entered but he's just so freaking good and so freaking consistent.

3rd here last year. Played outstanding at the Players (like every other week). If he can ever figure out his around the green game he will have a 5 win season.

Don't mind the short odds here. He's going to be in the mix for a win this week.

Weekly Bets

+5000 or better:

Louis Oosthuizen +2400 Fanduel (Bet $100 to win $2400 Fanduel)

Louis has elite history here and we're getting 8 points of value on him as his +1600 on most other sites. FD is just slow to go here so jump on this.

8th, 2nd, 16th, 7th in the last four times he's teed it up here. Has shown some life the last few times out on tour but he just has had one bad round with his putter or one bad round with his irons mixed in that drops him back.

Keegan Bradley +5000 (Bet $100 to win $3500 Draftkings)

Keegan is playing just outstanding golf right now. Was in the mix for a win at the Players despite being in the bad weather draw. Elite iron player who has been the first round leader here twice (unfortunately once he led after the first and then blew up in round 2 and missed the cut, in what become known as going Full Keegan)

Really strong value here. Should be +3500 given the field and his current form. Also is +5000 to be the First Round Leader and I love that bet!

Longshots:

Russell Knox +70000 (Bet $100 to win $7000 Fanduel)

+600 Top 10 Fanduel

Really big fan of Knox here. Elite course history with three straight top 25's. 6th at the Players. Hasn't missed a cut since the Amex.

Elite ballstriker who can find fairways and give himself birdie looks. Doesn't make big numbers as he has one of the lowest Double Bogey or worse %'s in the field. That's going to be massively important on a tough course like this.

Top 20 feels like free money and the +600 Top 10 odds are nice too! Get him on your card!

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