Valspar Championship Picks and Plays
How well will they handle the Snake Pit this week?
Well… The Players Championship picks and plays didn’t go as planned. By far, my worst results of the season to this point. As one of the hardest tournaments to predict, it certainly lived up to expectations. Outside of Rory, I didn’t have JJ Spaun, Danny Walker, or Bud Cauley on my radar. GOLF IS WILD!
Oh well—one of the best things about the golf schedule? There’s always another tournament the following week.
Innisbrook Golf Resort – Copperhead Course
This week, the pros head to Innisbrook Resort for the final event of the Florida swing at the Copperhead Course, just north of St. Petersburg. Regularly ranked among the top 10 toughest courses on the PGA Tour, Copperhead is a true test of precision and shot-making.
Like TPC Sawgrass and PGA National, Copperhead has its own notorious three-hole stretch—The Snake Pit. This challenging trio includes:
16th hole – 475-yard par 4
17th hole – 215-yard par 3
18th hole – 445-yard par 4
Each of these holes features deep bunkers, tight landing areas, and water hazards, with all three playing over par in last year’s event.
This is NOT a designated event so the field isn’t as strong as what we have seen the past few weeks. World #3 Xander Schauffele is in the field looking to shake off the rust. This would be his second event coming off injury and after making his 59th straight cut, the weekend at The Players Championship didn’t go to plan. Firing a 77-81 on Saturday and Sunday placed him DFL of everyone who made the cut. So he definitely has some kinks to work out. Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood are the other two top 10 golfers in the field.
JT, Fleetwood, and Xander are all the betting favorites this week but lets not forget about Sam Burns who has won this event back to back in 2021 & ‘22 and finished 6th in 2023. He will be looking to find some confidence in a place that has given him a lot of his top professional memories.
** Note: Akshay Bhatia has WD’d from the Valspar Championship and could be a weather wave advantage as it currently looks like early Thursday and Late Friday is the better of the two in terms of battling wind gusts
SLEEPERS
Adam Hadwin (+12000)
The Canadian has a love and hate relationship with this golf course. The love? How about finishes of 12th, 7th, 5th, and 1st. The hate? Four missed cuts including 3 out of the last 5. So this is most definitely a shot in the dark but at +12000 with those finishes with one being a win, is hard to pass up.
Hadwin has certainly had his struggles this year, but he’s scrappy and has plenty of years on Tour to put himself in contention this week. He also has a hilarious wife who blogs for Skratch about her experiences following him around at tournaments. If you're looking for some unique insight, check out the link below.
Jessica Hadwin articles for Skratch
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (+9000)
Never heard of him before? You’re not alone.
Here’s a quick bio from the DP World Tour:
Hailing from Denmark, he played college golf at Oklahoma State University from 2018 to 2022, winning twice and earning All-American honors. He turned professional in 2023 and made an impressive DP World Tour debut, finishing seventh at the BMW International Open.
His 2024 season was nothing short of spectacular. He won three times on the European Challenge Tour—at the Kolkata Challenge, UAE Challenge, and Big Green Egg German Challenge—securing an immediate promotion to the DP World Tour. He capped off the year as the Road to Mallorca Rankings winner after finishing runner-up at the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final, becoming the fourth Dane to achieve this feat.
For those following the Puerto Rico Open, he made a statement in his PGA Tour debut, finishing solo second. If not for an outlier 73 on Saturday (after shooting 63, 64, and 65 in the other three rounds), he might have found himself in the winner’s circle. With Viktor Hovland currently struggling, Denmark may have found its next rising star.
He brings no prior course history, but his recent performances suggest that won’t matter—he’s been gaining strokes across the board in his last two tournaments. Right now, he’s dialed in, and I’m here to ride the heat wave!
PICKS TO WIN
Jordan Spieth (+3500)
I’m looking for a bit more value in a player who defines streaky—hot one minute, cold the next. Putting faith in Jordan Spieth these days feels a lot like trusting my Minnesota Vikings—you expect the worst and hope for the best.
That said, there’s reason for optimism. He’s a past winner at this event, capturing the title in the Year of Spieth (2015), and he’s added two other top-10 finishes in seven appearances. When he makes the cut (he’s missed twice), he’s never finished worse than 20th.
With two top-10 finishes in his last four starts, Spieth comes in with some positive momentum. Last week at The Players Championship, he was a total yo-yo—up, down, and everything in between. But to be fair, so was most of the field.
Right now, he’s driving the ball extremely well, consistently gaining strokes in both accuracy and distance. The problem? He’s been losing strokes in the two areas he’s best known for—ball striking and putting.
So, what kind of Spieth will we get this week? Picking him is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re going to get.
Sepp Straka (+2500)
Sepp is a BALL STRAKA! The Sepptic tank is on a heater, and I expect that momentum to carry into this week. He's aiming for a perfect sweep, finishing inside the Top-20 at each event during the Florida Swing. Additionally, he's now posted eight Top-15 finishes in his last ten starts, including a win at The American Express in January. Not many golfers are playing as well as he is right now.
Further proof that he's hitting it well? He's currently 6th in Strokes Gained: Approach and 7th in Strokes Gained overall. While he doesn’t have a lot of course history to rely on, I don’t think it will matter as much here as it does at other venues. Am I concerned about his stamina after four straight weeks of play? I’d be lying if I said no. But if he gets off to a strong start on Thursday morning, I see no reason why he can't contend for his second win of the season.