Valspar Championship Best Bets and Golf Odds

Valspar Championship Best Bets and Golf Odds:

While it took a Monday finish, it was well worth the wait for Rory McIlroy to capture his second career Players Championship title in a three-hole aggregate-score playoff over J.J. Spaun. McIlroy, anywhere from 8-1 to 10-1 pre-tournament, now joins elite company with Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler as the only players with multiple Players and major championship victories. 

McIlroy got off to a good start in the playoff with a birdie at 16 to take a one-stroke lead, and then Spaun, a 125-1 pre-tournament long shot, hit his shot over the famous island green at 17 and eventually carded a triple bogey. 

Typically, it is Rory’s game off the tee that carries him to victory, but this time it was his iron play. He finished fifth in the field for Strokes Gained: Approach. If his approach play maintains, this could finally be the year he wins the Masters and completes the career Grand Slam, which he has been attempting to finish off since 2015. 

Spaun, who moved up to No. 25 in the OWGR and earned a Masters invitation with his play over the weekend, was inches away from the biggest moment of his career in Sunday’s final round on No. 17 but settled for second. Behind him were Tom Hoge, Akshay Bhatia and Lucas Glover in a three-way tie for third. 

This week, the Florida swing concludes just outside of Tampa with the Valspar Championship. 

Despite coming off consecutive “Signature” events at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship, the Valspar has drawn an excellent field, headed up at 14-1 by Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood, who both have third-place finishes here. 

Xander Schauffele (20-1) finished fifth here last year and it is rare to see the No. 3 player in the world not favored when the top two are skipping the event. However, Schauffele is still working his way back from a rib injury that sidelined him for two months this season and has posted finishes of 40th (Arnold Palmer) and 72nd (The  Players) in his two starts since returning. 

Corey Conners (25-1) was third two weeks ago at Bay Hill and sixth last week at The Players. 

Sepp Straka (25-1) is playing his fourth consecutive week and already has a victory (a 60-1 winner for us at The American Express) and two other top-7 finishes, including two weeks ago with a top-5 at the Arnold Palmer. 

Also playing his fourth consecutive week is Shane Lowry (28-1), who was the 36-hole leader for us at the API before finishing seventh. Perhaps he will be spurred on by his mate McIlroy’s victory last weekend.

Will Zalatoris (28-1) was briefly tied for the lead in Saturday’s third round before playing his final five holes at 9 over par and eventually finishing 30th. 

Two-time Valspar champion (2021, 2022) Sam Burns (33-1) has yet to find his form here in 2025. 

At 35-1 are Tom Kim and 2014 Valspar champion Jordan Spieth. 

Defending champion Peter Malnati won this event as a 300-1 bomb last year. This time around he is as high as 1000-1 at both DraftKings and FanDuel and has missed 14 of his last 18 cuts on the PGA Tour. 

Other previous Valspar champions in this week’s field include 2023 winner Taylor Moore (45-1), 2017 winner Adam Hadwin (125-1), 2012 winner Luke Donald (2500-1) and 2011 winner Gary Woodland (150-1). 

The Event

The Valspar Championship was founded as the Tampa Bay Classic in 2000. Originally, the tournament was a fall event but moved to the spring portion of the season in 2007. Valspar Corporation, a manufacturer of paint and coatings now owned by Sherwin-Williams Company, took over as the title sponsor in 2014. Four players have been multiple winners of this event: K.J. Choi (2002, 2006), Retief Goosen (2003, 2009), Paul Casey (2018, 2019) and Sam Burns (2021, 2022). Other previous winners include former major champions Jordan Spieth, Charl Schwartzel, Gary Woodland, Jim Furyk, Mark Calcavecchia and Vijay Singh.

The Field

Twenty-three of the Top 50 OWGR players are in this week’s 156-player field. 

Takumi Kanaya replaces Trey Mullinax off the alternate list.
Alejandro Tosti replaces Akshay Bhatia off the alternate list. 
Aaron Baddeley replaces Erik van Rooyen off the alternate list.
Bronson Burgoon replaces Carson Young off the alternate list. 
Philip Knowles, Andre Chi, Adrien Dumont de Chassart, and Kevin Tway were the four Monday qualifiers. 

The Course

The Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club plays host this week to the Valspar Championship. The track is in Palm Harbor, Fla., about 22 miles north of downtown St. Petersburg and west of Tampa.

Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead) is a treelined, positional golf course located on the Pinellas Peninsula only minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. It forces many layups off the tee and asks players to work the ball in both directions. It’s a shot-maker’s course with some significant elevation changes that will open the playing field to bombers and short plotters alike.

The 1974 Larry Packard design, with a 2015 redesign from Wadsworth Golf, is atypical of most Florida courses. The par-71 of 7,352 yards is tight off the tee (fourth-narrowest fairways on tour — 26 yards on average) and encompasses tree-lined fairways, many elevation changes, dogleg holes and even double doglegs, a Packard specialty. Copperhead is the same length as TPC Sawgrass (par-72) for last week’s Players, but it is the longest par-71 played thus far this season. 

Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course has more of a Carolina feel to it rather than a typical Florida layout. Water is in play on six of the 18 holes and the course has 74 bunkers. There are five par-3s here which is unique for a par-71 layout, four par-5s and nine par-4s.

The “Snake Pit” is the signature stretch of closing holes at holes 16-18. Pars are good scores all four days here. No Valspar winner in the history of the tournament has played the “Snake Pit” at under par. 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-3 17th 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. All three holes feature over an 18% bogey rate and under a 10% birdie rate.

The fairways and rough are a Ryegrass overseed. The green complexes were changed to TifEagle Bermudagrass in 2016. However, the Bermudagrass is more dormant in March than in late April. The slightly less than 6,000 average sq ft greens are mostly Poa Trivialis overseed with some Bermuda creeping through on average speed (12 stimpmeter) greens.

Nine of the past 11 years, scoring at Innisbrook has been 10 under par or lower, but the winning score had been 17 under in 2021 and 2022. 

In response, the course superintendents have increased the ryegrass rough from three inches to 3.75 inches and moved the rough with an intermediate cut from 72 inches to 21 inches to bring the rough 51 inches closer to the greens. These changes definitely toughened the course as -10 and -12 have been the winning scores in the last two years. 

Correlated courses include TPC Sawgrass, Harbour Town, Riviera, Colonial, CC Jackson, TPC Southwind,  TPC River Highlands and TPC San Antonio.

Golf Stay and Plays, a golfing vacations concierge service, has a hole-by-hole video of the Copperhead Course

Weather

At first glance, there seems to be a potential draw bias that favors the Thursday morning/Friday afternoon tee times vs. the Thursday afternoon/Friday morning tee times.

AccuWeather shows wind gusts Thursday morning from 8-15 mph, while Thursday afternoon will have gusts over 30 mph. 

Here are the opening-round tee times. 

Valspar Championship Recent History/Winners

2024: Peter Malnati (-12/272); 300-1

2023: Taylor Moore (-10/274); 50-1

2022: Sam Burns (-17/267); 20-1*

2021: Sam Burns (-17/267); 70-1

2020: No Tournament (COVID-19)

2019: Paul Casey (-8/276); 25-1

2018: Paul Casey (-10/274); 25-1

2017: Adam Hadwin (-14/270); 125-1

2016: Charl Schwartzel (-8/276); 33-1*

2015: Jordan Spieth (-10/274); 16-1**

2014: John Senden (-7/277); 125-1

2013: Kevin Streelman (-10/274); 200-1

2012: Luke Donald (-13/271); 11-1***

2011: Gary Woodland (-15/269); 100-1

2010: Jim Furyk (-13/271); 30-1

Playoff Win over Davis Riley – *

Playoff Win over Bill Haas – **

Playoff Win over Sean O’ Hair & Patrick Reed – ***

Playoff Win over SangMoon Bae, Jim Furyk, & Robert Garrigus – ****

Valspar Championship Trends

• 16 of the last 17 winners had at least one previous top-10 finish that season before winning the Valspar Championship. 
• 14 of the last 17 winners had played in at least two previous Valspar Championships.
• 12 of the last 17 winners had at least one previous career win. 

Statistical Analysis

Here are the rankings for Strokes Gained: Approach for the recent winners of the Valspar during their winning weeks here at Innisbrook:

2024: Malnati +2.84 (20th)

2023: Moore +5.12 (5th)

2022: Burns +7.00 (3rd)

2021: Burns +3.72 (14th)

2019: Casey +4.64 (7th)

2018: Casey +5.00 (7th)

2017: Hadwin +8.16 (2nd)

2016: Schwartzel +7.84 (3rd)

2015: Spieth +4.36 (12th)

Players hit these greens only around 57% of the time, so approach play carries even more weight this week.

Strokes Gained: Approach — Average Per Round (2025 PGA TOUR season)

1. Tommy Fleetwood 1.076
2. Henrik Norlander 0.956
3. Jackson Suber 0.954
4. Sepp Straka 0.933
5. Shane Lowry 0.925
6. Tom Kim 0.873
7. Justin Thomas 0.843
8. Doug Ghim 0.766
9. Nicolai Højgaard 0.765
10. Joel Dahmen 0.685
11. Niklas Norgaard 0.610
12. Karl Vilips 0.554
13. Charley Hoffman 0.548
14. Max McGreevy 0.541
15. Viktor Hovland 0.537
16. Will Zalatoris 0.537
17. Greyson Sigg 0.533
18. Rico Hoey 0.513
19. Andrew Putnam 0.508
20. Michael Kim 0.506

Over half the approach shots come from 175 yards or more. 

Average Proximity Gained — Average Yards Per Round — 175-200 Yards (Last 36 rounds)

1. Antoine Rozner 16.62
2. Henrik Norlander 15.74
3. Nicolai Højgaard 12.55
4. Kurt Kitayama 11.53
5. Sepp Straka 10.90
6. Will Gordon 10.81
7. Ben Martin 10.34
8. Joel Dahmen 10.05
9. Xander Schauffele 9.44
10. Matt McCarty 9.04
11. Adam Svensson 8.67
12. Viktor Hovland 8.44
13. Max McGreevy 8.42
14. Karl Vilips 8.22
15. David Skinns 7.32
16. Tommy Fleetwood 7.16
17. Matti Schmid 7.12
18. Matteo Manassero 7.01

Average Proximity Gained — Yards Per Round — 200+ Yards (Last 36 rounds)

1. Danny Walker 23.79 (12 rounds)
2. Mark Hubbard 20.86
3. Kurt Kitayama 19.13
4. Jackson Suber 17.56 (24 rounds)
5. Thorbjørn Olesen 16.34
6. Erik van Rooyen 16.17
7. Ben Griffin 16.14
8. Nick Hardy 15.55
9. Nicolai Højgaard 15.48
10. Viktor Hovland 14.65
11. Cam Davis 14.05
12. Luke Clanton 14.02
13. Gary Woodland 13.56
14. Michael Thorbjornsen 13.36
15. Matti Schmid 13.17
16. Xander Schauffele 12.97

Players hit the fairways here only around 56% of the time, even with keeping the driver in the bag most of the time. The best way to measure success off the tee here is to use Good Drives Gained, which means that an approach shot still reaches the green in regulation even if the player misses the fairway off the tee. 

Good Drives Gained (Last 36 rounds)

1. Tommy Fleetwood 46.8
2. Ben Martin 37.3
3. Andrew Putnam 31.4
4. Ben Kohles 29.4
5. Ben Griffin 26.6
6. Gary Woodland 24.2
7. Taylor Moore 23.1
8. Rico Hoey 22.8
9. Viktor Hovland 22.5
10. Victor Perez 22.4
11. Doug Ghim 22.2
12. Alex Smalley 22.2
13. Michael Kim 21.2
14. Matt Wallace 20.7
15. Takumi Kanaya 20.6
16. Sam Ryder 20.1

Copperhead features the lowest Birdie or Better percentage of any course on the PGA Tour and players are grinding out pars and trying to avoid bogeys on the card.

Bogey Avoidance Percentage (2025 PGA Tour season)

1. Brice Garnett 10.26% (Percentage of time player makes bogey)
2. Michael Kim 10.37
3. Keith Mitchell 11.11
4. Paul Peterson 11.11
5. Kevin Roy 11.11
6. Alex Smalley 11.32
7. Andrew Putnam 11.33
8. Nicolai Højgaard 11.51
9. Sepp Straka 11.60
10. Jeremy Paul 11.67
11. Sam Ryder 11.71
12. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 12.07
13. Quade Cummins 12.22
14. Victor Perez 12.50
15. Takumi Kanaya 12.59

With thicker rough being moved to closer surroundings around the greens in 2023, the scrambling average decreased from 66% to around 60% combined over the last two years. 

Scrambling Percentage (2025 PGA Tour season)

1. Paul Peterson 69.66%
2. Danny Willett 69.62
3. Michael Kim 69.09
4. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 68.97
5. Alex Smalley 68.84
6. Keith Mitchell 68.27
7. Mac Meissner 68.00
8. Matt Wallace 67.86
9. Brice Garnett 67.72
10. Henrik Norlander 66.92
11. Jacob Bridgeman 66.67
12. Sam Ryder 66.45
13. Quade Cummins 66.07
14. Kevin Roy 66.04
15. Victor Perez 65.88
16. Takumi Kanaya 65.82
17. Chris Gotterup 65.63
18. Brandt Snedeker 65.08

The four par-5s are the easiest four holes on the course and players must take advantage of them.

Strokes Gained Par-5s (Last 36 rounds)

1. Neal Shipley 18.9 (32 rounds)
2. Sepp Straka 17.7
3. Adam Scott 16.4
4. Justin Thomas 16.3
5. Joe Highsmith 16
6. Andrew Novak 15.7
7. Taylor Moore 15
8. Keith Mitchell 13.7
9. Jake Knapp 13.5
10. Matti Schmid 13.4
11. Matt Wallace 13.1
12. Jesper Svensson 12.8 (35 rounds)
13. Kevin Roy 12.8
14. Niklas Norgaard 12.7 (22 rounds)
15. Will Zalatoris 12.7
16. Steven Fisk 12.6 (25 rounds)
17. Michael Kim 12.6
18. Luke Clanton 12.2 
19. Billy Horschel 12.1
20. J.T. Poston 12.1

Three of the par-3s are 200 yards or longer and the other is just under that mark at 195.

Strokes Gained Par-3s 200-225 yards (Last 36 rounds)

1. Ben Griffin 9.2
2. Sam Burns 9
3. Xander Schauffele 9
4. Luke Donald 8.6
5. Andrew Putnam 8.5
6. Aldrich Potgieter 7.9 (29 rounds)
7. John Pak 7.4
8. Nicolai Højgaard 7.3
9. Michael Kim 7.2
10. Seamus Power 6.9
11. Michael Thorbjornsen 6.6
12. Will Zalatoris 6.6
13. Mac Meissner 5.9
14. Sam Ryder 5.5
15. Jacob Bridgeman 5.5
16. Ryo Hisatsune 5.5
17. Ben Kohles 5.4
18. Lucas Glover 5.4
19. Billy Horschel 5.3
20. Chan Kim 5.1
21. Ryan Gerard 5

The greens at Copperhead are Bermuda, but it is mostly dormant, so it is a Poa Triv overseed. Nevertheless, these are some of the smoothest greens on tour.

Here are the recent putting results for recent winners here at the Valspar:

2024: Malnati +8.32 (3rd)

2023: Moore +4.88 (9th)

2022: Burns +5.16 (8th)

2021: Burns +9.08 (3rd)

2019: Casey +0.40 (43rd)  —  1st Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green that week

2018: Casey +3.44 (15th)

2017: Hadwin +6.88 (4th)

2016: Schwartzel +3.56 (12th)

2015: Spieth +3.12 (26th)

Strokes Gained Putting — Average Per Round (2025 PGA Tour season)

1. Brandt Snedeker 1.009
2. Frankie Capan 0.845
3. Sam Ryder 0.823
4. Aldrich Potgieter 0.725
5. Harry Hall 0.680
6. Christiaan Bezuidenhout 0.656
7. Nico Echavarria 0.652
8. Sam Burns 0.649
9. Zach Johnson 0.648
10. Justin Lower 0.630
11. Jake Knapp 0.599
12. Nicolai Højgaard 0.588
13. Stephan Jaeger 0.544
14. Jesper Svensson 0.543
15. Ryan Gerard 0.531
16. Quade Cummins 0.530
17. Jacob Bridgeman 0.514
18. Sami Valimaki 0.513

Selections

Tom Kim (33-1, BetMGM)

Kim is a debutant here at the Valspar and only finished T-42 last week at The Players; however, he led the field for Strokes Gained: Approach, gaining +9.88 shots with the irons.

His putter betrayed him as he lost nearly five strokes on the greens. 

He is also in the early Thursday draw with Peter Malnati and Sam Burns, two of the last three Valspar champions. 

Copperhead is all about positional driving, and that’s the best way for Kim to play off the tee. 

Michael Kim (40-1, BetMGM)

Before last week, this was Kim’s run of form (most recent event first):

4th Arnold Palmer Invitational

T-6th Cognizant Classic

T-13th Mexico Open

T-13th Genesis Invitational

T-2nd Waste Management Phoenix Open

So you can see why Kim was fairly widely backed last week at The Players, where he missed the cut by one stroke.

This week, we will buy on a small dip. 

Will Zalatoris (45-1, Caesars Sportsbook)

The only player on the card who is in the tougher Thursday PM/Friday AM draw. A couple of shops have bumped his price up to where I have to play the number for his Valspar debut. 

Zalatoris was tied for the lead with just five holes left to play on Saturday before the worst of the wind came. He took a quadruple bogey on 14, then it went worse with a double bogey, par, double bogey and bogey to close going from 11 under to 2 under.

Nevertheless, he gained both on approach and with the putter. 

Jacob Bridgeman (66-1, BetMGM)

Bridgeman shared second three weeks ago at the Cognizant Classic and followed up with a top-15 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational “Signature” event.

Last week also marked a milestone for Bridgeman as he cracked the top 100 in the OWGR for the first time in his career.

He ranks 14th in Strokes Gained: Total and 17th for Strokes Gained: Putting this season on the PGA Tour.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout (80-1, BetRivers)

Bezuidenhout finished in the top 10 here at Copperhead last year. 

He ranks sixth on tour for Scrambling, ninth for Strokes Gained: Putting and 11th for Strokes Gained: Around The Green. 

The South African also ranks seventh for Distance from the Edge of the Fairway, which indicates that he is getting proper angles into the greens even when he misses fairways and that is the name of the game here on the Copperhead course. 

Nicolai Højgaard (100-1, BetRivers)

He missed the cut last week at The Players but ranks ninth on the PGA Tour for Bogey Avoidance, 13th for Strokes Gained: Approach and 17th for Strokes Gained: Putting to go along with leading the tour for Greens In Regulation and ranking second in Three-Putt Avoidance. 

The Dane can hit greens and grind out pars, which you must be able to do on the Copperhead course. 

Danny Walker (125-1, BetMGM)

The PGA Tour rookie earned his card this season from being in the top 30 on the Korn Ferry Tour points list. 

He earned his best career tour finish with a sixth last week at The Players, ranking second in the field for Strokes Gained: Off The Tee and sixth for Greens In Regulation. This finish came after he earned the last spot in the field as an alternate and made the cut on the number. 

Placement markets and/or matchups will be available Wednesday at VSiN.com/picks