The PGA Tour’s Florida Swing concludes with a trip to the much-loved Copperhead Course and its famous Snake Pit finish for the Valspar Championship.
A high-class field is heading to TPC Innisbrook just north of Tampa to take on a 7,352-yard, tree-lined layout which puts an onus on driving accuracy, but where the hottest putters over the four days will dominate the leaderboard.
For many, it is a chance to hone games on the run-in to Augusta and it looks an open field, with top-10 stars like world No.1 Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa and newly-crowned Players Champion, Rory McIlroy, swerving the tournament.
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Valspar Championship Tips
- Corey Conners to win Valspar Championship @ 22/1
- Jordan Spieth each-way Valspar Championship @ 35/1
- Thomas Detry Top Continental European @ SP
Classy Corey can conquer Copperhead
Corey Conners has been knocking on the door over the last couple of weeks and he looks a genuine call to make it third time lucky in the Valspar.
The straight-hitting Canadian should find enough fairways and greens to give himself every chance of glory, and then we just need to trust his flat stick to behave.
As a two-time PGA Tour winner we know he can do it and this year he has been the model of consistency, with four top-25s in seven starts and only one missed cut.
The last two weeks he has played really well, following up a third-place effort at the Arnold Palmer with T6 at the Players, where he was only three strokes off making a play-off.
Spieth fits profile of tournament winner
There aren’t too many performance statistics that bear much scrutiny at the Valspar, though course form looks a useful guide.
Since 2000, when the Valspar was reinvented, there have been four two-time winners. Jordan Spieth could conceivably become the fifth.
The three-time major champion and former world No.1 goes off at big prices these days as he battles back from surgery last summer.
But he, like so many, cannot wait to visit the popular Copperhead track, where he won in 2015 and was third a couple of years back.
He is enjoying a decent early-season as he finetunes for The Masters, with four rounds in the 60s earning him T4 in Phoenix, while he kicked off the Florida Swing with T9 at the Cognizant Classic.
Detry to fly European flag in Florida
There are a fair few Europeans teeing it up at the Valspar and two names particularly jump out.
Austria’s Sepp Straka was top of the FedEx Cup rankings before McIlroy leapfrogged him at Sawgrass and he is enjoying a stellar start to the 2025 PGA Tour season.
But another player who is making a splash stateside is Thomas Detry and the young Belgian can outgun Straka and the rest to finish the week as the highest-placed player from continental Europe.
Detry enjoyed his first look at the famous Snake Pit 12 months ago when he came home T17 on four-under-par.
After top-15s at the start of the year at The Sentry and Farmers Insurance Open, he came from left-field to win the Phoenix Open – and you need bottle to be able to deliver in that cauldron – something that sets him up well for the tough closing holes at Copperhead.
He missed the cut at the Players but his Friday 68 should have at least given him good vibes for his next challenge.
Valspar Championship Tips
- Corey Conners to win Valspar Championship @ 22/1
- Jordan Spieth each-way Valspar Championship @ 35/1
- Thomas Detry Top Continental European @ SP
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