PGA DFS GPP Breakdown: Valspar Championship

Top-ranked grinder, STLCardinals84, will break down his top GPP golf targets for the coming week’s tournament, going over his favorite plays at various price ranges. Who better than PGA DFS master, STLCards, to help you on your way.

Valspar Championship

Greetings, Grinders! We are back with another Florida swing event this week, with the Valspar Championship on the calendar for us. We have a relatively weak field for this event, as it does not have the new “elevated status” compared to a few of the other Florida tournaments. This gives us a bit of a letdown factor for DFS, but there is still plenty of money out there and up for grabs! Everyone is playing with the same player pool!

As for the tournament itself, this event will be played at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook. This is a very difficult par 71 layout, but it does not fit the traditional par 71 that would have three par fives and four par threes. This course actually has four par fives and five par threes, which is not something you often see. However, the par fives are no pushover, as they often average among the hardest sets of par fives that we see regularly on the PGA Tour. There are generally no “easy” holes around this place. As we see with most challenging courses, accuracy, ball striking, and approach play are of prime importance. Rostering players who are strong with their long irons is a primary objective, as there will be many approach shots hit from 150+ yards. Golfers who can scramble and avoid bogeys also get a nice bump, as the greens are small and par is a fine score here. Expect the scoring average to be around 1.50 to 1.75 over par on average in the absence of extreme weather.

Let’s get to some of my favorite GPP picks for this week!

Justin Thomas
DraftKings: $10,900
FanDuel: $12,000
Yahoo: $48

Thomas is clearly the most talented player in this field, and he’s one of the only golfers who doesn’t “feel” like he’s too expensive in this spot. Despite a bit of a lull in his form, he still leads this field in tee to green play and ranks 2nd in around the green play over the last 36 rounds. Those factors will be key on a tough course, and his history here is also solid with T13 and T3 finishes over the last two years.

Matt Fitzpatrick
DraftKings: $10,000
FanDuel: $11,500
Yahoo: $46

Assuming he is healthy, Fitzpatrick is my second favorite overall option on the board this week, behind only Justin Thomas. Fitzpatrick is longer off the tee than he used to be, but he still plays well when he needs to club down off the tee as a strong long iron player. He finished T5 a year ago at this event, so the course fit it obviously there. In a weak field, I want exposure to the golfers at the top, so I’ll roll Fitz as a strong upside play.

Wyndham Clark
DraftKings: $8,800
FanDuel: $10,300
Yahoo: $32

I like both Clark and Justin Suh as options in this price range, but I’ll side with Clark in GPP builds due to lower projected ownership. Clark has been playing strong golf of late, and he ranks inside the top 12 of this field in total strokes gained, tee to green play, ball striking, approach play, and around the green play over the last 36 rounds. He has not finished outside the top 50 of any event since October of last year, and that’s pretty remarkable for a player who used to have a knack for being inconsistent. There aren’t a lot of players with strong course history in this salary range, so I’ll gladly take the statistical angle with Clark.

Victor Perez
DraftKings: $7,800
FanDuel: $9,100
Yahoo: $26

Perez isn’t a household name on the PGA Tour because he plays over in Europe most of the time, and that has his ownership sitting in the single digits despite the fact that he has better odds than most players in his DFS pricing tier. Perez has plenty of talent and has finished 1st, 28th, and 13th in his three European Tour starts in 2023. Don’t be fooled by the PGA Tour stats, as he’s in much better form and hasn’t played in many PGA Tour events. We’ve seen plenty of European regulars play well in the past at Copperhead, too.

Pierceson Coody
DraftKings: $7,400
FanDuel: $8,800
Yahoo: $27

Coody got some buzz as a value option a couple weeks ago at the Honda Classic, and he was a relative disappointment (despite making the cut) with a T63 finish. That led to most people ignoring him going forward despite a T14 finish the following week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Coody is a talented 23 year old with some upside potential, and it would not surprise me to see him make noise in a weak field.

Matthew NeSmith
DraftKings: $7,200
FanDuel: $8,800
Yahoo: $35

NeSmith has not been in the best of form, but he’s a player that I am willing to take a chance on. The talent is there, and he has significantly more potential than a lot of the other values this week. He has gained over 17 strokes over field average on his way to T21 and T3 finishes the last two years at this tournament, and perhaps that will spark some of his talent back to life. He does rank inside the top third of this field in long iron play over the last six months, and that’s a key for me this week. Take some GPP chances with him.

Other Risk/Reward GPP Options – Tommy Fleetwood, J.T. Poston, Joseph Bramlett

Good luck this week!

Image Credit: Getty Images