By: @Ryan_Humphries on Twitter & LineStar Chat

Tournament & Field 🏆

The PGA Tour stays in the Sunshine State for one final week as golfers prepare to tee it up at The Valspar Championship which is held in Palm Harbor, FL at Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead Course). This will be another large field event with 144 players on-site and the typical 36-hole cut rule continues to be in play (top 65 & ties play the weekend). This isn’t a super-loaded field, but we’ll still have a fair amount of talent to choose from with 21 of the world’s top 100 ranked golfers competing. Headlining this field are well-known names like Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Matt Fitzpatrick, and the defending back-to-back champion Sam Burns. The Masters is only three weeks away so this week will be a great opportunity for golfers to fine-tune their form as we near the first Major of the season! This is also a great chance for certain golfers who are not currently eligible to play in this year’s Masters to move into a qualifying position to compete!

The Course Preview ⛳

Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead Course)

Par 71 | 7,340 Yards

Greens: Bermuda

Course Type: Parkland

*Course Difficulty Last 5 Years: 29th, 20th, 6th, 6th, 17th

*Winning Score Last 5 Years: -17, -17, -8, -10, -14

*Cut Line Last 5 Years: -3, -1, +1, +3, Even

*Course data excluded from 2020 as the event was canceled due to COVID.

Aside from 2020 when the event was canceled, Copperhead has hosted this tournament every year since 2000. It’s a challenging Par 71 set-up that extends 7,340 yards on the scorecard. The five long Par 3s are a unique aspect of this course, all of which check in at over 195 yards. To put it succinctly, Copperhead plays long and provides many challenges which can make scoring quite difficult, especially if windy conditions come into play (which is expected this week). It is not uncommon for this course to rank inside the top 10 in terms of course difficulty in any given year and a winning score around 12-under par can usually be expected. Golfers will need to do the majority of their scoring on the four Par 5s and simply fight to survive the rest of the course at even par. Holes No. 16, 17, and 18 at Copperhead are dubbed “The Snake Pit” and it is the furthest thing from a cakewalk. How players navigate those three holes will likely decide the eventual champion come Sunday.

Personally speaking, these tougher tracks, which have landed on the schedule in recent weeks, are my favorite sorts of courses to watch the professionals compete on and they should be in for another fairly grueling battle this week. Even though Copperhead plays long, accuracy is more important than distance here; this is because there are several doglegged hole layouts, tight fairways which are 6 1/2 yards narrower than the PGA Tour average, many elevation changes, thick rough, 70+ bunkers, and not to mention water which comes into play on 11 of the 18 holes.

For the majority of the holes at Copperhead, golfers all end up targeting the same general landing zones when teeing off so there is no real need to rank bombers over the shorter hitters. The average driving distance on this course was 278.3 yards in 2022, which is nearly 12 yards shorter than the PGA Tour average. Since many golfers will be clubbing down off of the tee, around a third of approach shots will end up coming from the 175-200 yard range. To go along with the four Par 3s that are all essentially 200+ yards in length, it’s easy to see how accurate long iron play can pay dividends here. Any regular readers of this newsletter know I tend to weigh either SG: Approach or SG: Ball Striking very heavily most weeks. I’ll be switching that up to focus on golfers who simply excel tee-to-green this week. I’ll also be targeting guys who often take advantage of Par 5s and those who rank out well in terms of bogey avoidance. On many of these holes, even par is going to feel like a birdie to these golfers and any strokes that are given up will be difficult to gain back. This one should get interesting so let’s go ahead and jump into a quick look at the windy forecast, key stats to focus on, golfers who stand out in my personal model, and this week’s PGA DFS cheat sheet!

Weather & Tee Times ⛅

(Click the images above to view the most up-to-date forecast)

Thursday: Sustained winds hover around 10-12 mph in the morning along with gusts around 25 mph. Wind speeds drop significantly in the afternoon to roughly 5 mph sustained and no significant gusts.

Friday: Sustained winds should average around 15 mph throughout the day. The morning hours call for some significant 30 mph gusts which drop down to around 20 mph in the early afternoon and ~15 mph in the late afternoon.

Weekend: Both Saturday and Sunday will continue to feature windy conditions with around 15-20 mph sustained speeds and slightly stronger gusts. Saturday brings forth the strong possibility of lengthy weather delays due to heavy rains forecasted throughout the day, particularly in the morning hours.

⚖️Weather Verdict: The forecast is definitely dicey this week but, fortunately, there should not be any stoppages due to rain in the Thursday/Friday rounds ahead of the cut. Golfers who tee off in the Thursday afternoon wave will be able to compete in the calmest wind conditions of the entire week. However, that wave may also be exposed to the heaviest gusts on Friday morning. Even so, the PM/AM wave should likely draw the most favorable overall conditions so they should receive a slight advantage boost when it comes to DFS decision-making this week. Does that mean totally fade the AM/PM wave? Certainly not. But perhaps it'd be wise to generate around 60-65% of your player pool from the PM/AM wave (given the current forecast). As always, be sure to run a final weather check on Wednesday night (or very early Thursday morning) in case there are any significant shifts in the forecast.

Valspar Championship Tee Times

Key Stats to Consider 📊

1. Strokes Gained: Tee to Green | 35%

2. Par 4 Average | 15%

3. Par 5 Birdie or Better Percentage | 15%

4. Bogey Avoidance | 15%

5. Long Iron Accuracy (Proximity 175+ Yards) | 10%

6. Par 3 Average | 5%

7. Driving Accuracy | 5%

PGA Tour Stats Page

Valspar Championship Model Standouts 🏅

Below are the top 20 ranked golfers in both my overall model and my key stats model. Below that are the top 20 leaders in average fantasy points over the last five and last ten starts. The players ranked on these lists do not necessarily mean they are the top golfers I’m targeting for this week's event, but many of these guys should no doubt be favorable DFS options.

Overall Model Rank: A golfer’s ranking (within the current field) in my personal DFS model, which weighs all of the key stats listed above in this newsletter, as well as things like course history, recent form, recent average fantasy scoring results, and odds to win.

Key Stat Rank: Provides a golfer’s overall rank (in relation to the field) in my "key stats only" model, which considers only the key stats listed above in this newsletter with the specified percentage weights allocated towards each statistic.

Valspar Championship DFS Cheat Sheet 📑

Click the Cheat Sheet above for the direct image link

Alternative Cheat Sheet Direct Image Link

Cheat Sheet QR Code:

That will do it for our PGA preview! Best of luck this week and, once again, feel free to hit me up in the LineStar chat or on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries with any questions.