PGA DFS Core Plays: Valspar Championship
Top-ranked grinder, Notorious, breaks down his favorite daily fantasy golf plays at various salary ranges for the coming week’s golf tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
Valspar Championship Preview
Go Team Mullet!
The Aussies were able to take down the Zurich Classic thanks to an errant drive from Louis Oosthuizen on the first playoff hole. While I am a Cameron Smith truther, it was a little painful to watch Louis and Charl Schwartzel fall short. This would have been the first win in North America for Louis and it would have secured another two years on the tour for Schwartzel. Regardless, it was a great win for Smith and Marc Leishman. It was a rather disappointing week of DFS and betting, so I am looking forward to this week’s stroke play event.
The Valspar Championship is the final leg of the Florida swing, so if you aren’t a fan of bermuda and/or huge blowup holes, then you’ll be excited to hear this information. It is played at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook, which is a Par 71 that measures over 7,300 yards. The course is much shorter than it looks at first glance, as there are four par fives (all over 560 yards) and five par threes (all over 195 yards). This is a less than driver course for most and even with golfers clubbing down off the tee, the fairways are still extremely tough to hit. Unlike most Florida courses, these fairways are lined with trees.
Even if you do manage to find the fairway, hitting the green isn’t a guarantee. The average green in regulation percentage here is about 5% lower than tour average. This naturally creates more scrambling opportunities. The greens themselves are fairly small and made of TifEagle Bermudagrass. The course is routinely ranked in the top 10 on tour when it comes to difficultly, which generally benefits the elite ball strikers. If Paul Casey can win this event two times in a row, clearly bad putters can find success here. The course fit that I am looking for this week is strong iron play and strong around the green play, which is a very unique skillset.
Windfinder Forecast
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties (at least 42% of the field will make the cut)
Key Statistics (In Order of Importance)
- Strokes Gained Approach
- Strokes Gained Around the Green
- Bogey Avoidance
- Total Driving or Driving Accuracy
- Strokes Gained Putting (Emphasis on Bermuda)
Yardage Specialists (Based on Holes at Copperhead)
- Corey Conners
- Dustin Johnson
- Chris Kirk
- Patrick Reed
- Cameron Tringale
My Favorite Course Comps
- Muirfield Village
- Sea Island (Seaside)
- TPC River Highlands
- All other Florida courses