Scouting the Routing: 2024 Valspar Championship

It was a week of ups and downs for us around TPC Sawgrass, as four of our six outright selections ended the week inside the top ten on the leaderboard, but as Wyndham Clark's birdie putt on 18 lipped out on the left side, we once again came up just short of cashing out second outright ticket of 2024.

This week may provide a welcome change of pace for golf bettors, as Scottie Scheffler is taking a well-deserved week off following a two-start stretch where he not only banked $45 million and a pair of prestigious titles, but established himself perhaps as the most dominant golfer we've seen in the last decade. Innisbrook Resort will play host to the final leg of 2024's Florida Swing, and it's apparent by the field this week that many top players are also looking forward to a week without the top dog around. Eight of the OWGR Top 20 are here in Palm Harbor -- one of the strongest fields we've seen for the Valspar in recent memory.

Before we get into the odds board on tap for golf bettors Monday morning, this piece will serve to break down every key trend and statistic I'm weighing to project a player's viability in the outright market and set you up to make the crucial decisions necessary before the market shifts later in the week. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting report on Innisbrook's Copperhead Course and the 2024 Valspar Championship!

The Golf Course

The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook - Par 71; 7,340 yards

Past Champions

• 2023 - Taylor Moore (-10) over Adam Schenk
• 2022 - Sam Burns (-17) over Davis Riley (playoff)
• 2021 - Sam Burns (-17) over Keegan Bradley
• 2019 - Paul Casey (-8) over Jason Kokrak & Louis Oosthuizen
• 2018 - Paul Casey (-10) over Patrick Reed & Tiger Woods
• 2017 - Adam Hadwin (-14) over Patrick Cantlay

Innisbrook by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee):

• Average Fairway Width -- 27.9 yards; 5th narrowest on the PGA Tour
• Average Driving Distance -- 276.9 yards; 3rd lowest on Tour
• Driving Accuracy -- 57.1%; 14th lowest on Tour
• Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.34; 16th lowest on Tour
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: (-0.061); Toughest on Tour

Although Palm Harbor marks the end of our four-week stint in the Sunshine State, Innisbrook does not fit the same hazardous driving profile of a TPC Sawgrass, PGA National, or Bay Hill. Water comes into play on just five of 14 tee shots here at the Copperhead Course, and Innisbrook's 2.1% penalty fraction (the percentage of missed fairways that result in a penalty stroke), ranks well below the 5-6% baselines of its Florida cousins.

Instead, Innisbrook relies on a multitude of tight doglegs, treelined corridors, and forced layups to test the world's best off of the tee. Club-down options will be presented on virtually every hole, and as a result, the average driving distance ranked as the fourth lowest on Tour in 2023 (just 280.5 yards).

This eclectic layout makes the Copperhead Course one of the toughest places on Tour for elite drivers to separate themselves in their usual ways, and when looking back through recent strokes gained leaderboards, it's not uncommon to see precision players like Kevin Streelman, Brian Harman, Abraham Ancer, and Paul Casey find their way to the top of total driving leaderboards.

It should also be noted that off-the-tee prowess ranks as one of the lowest predictors to success around Innisbrook. Two of the last five champions here have actually lost strokes to the field off of the tee, and top five finishers have historically gained just 15.7% of their total strokes with their tee shots.

If you are looking for specific stats to predict success at Innisbrook, I would mainly lean into accuracy-intensive stats like Good Drive % and Fairways Gained. Additionally, it could also be worth looking back at a player's historical OTT splits around Innisbrook in particular (as well as a collection of comparable club-down designs: Harbour Town, Colonial, Wai'alae, PGA National, etc.). If a player has shown a regular acumen for navigating these strategic layouts, I'd have no worries about his ability to conquer the driving test on tap at Innisbrook this week.

Innisbrook by the Numbers (Approach):

• Green in Regulation Rate -- 57.2%; 2nd lowest on the PGA Tour
• Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: (-0.024); 9th toughest on Tour
• Key Proximity Ranges:
  • 175-200 yards (accounts for 23.7% of historical approach shots)
  • 200+ yards (23.2%)
  • 150-175 yards (20.6%)

We talk virtually every week about the amplified significance of iron play in predictiveness when compared to off-the-tee, but there is perhaps no other venue in which the gap as wide as this week at Innisbrook. Top five finishers at Innisbrook have gained more strokes on approach (on average) than with their drivers and short games combined, and no champion here since 2014 has gained less than 3.7 strokes with their irons for the week (only three have gained less than 5).

When attempting to find a winner this week, then, projecting the field's most prolific iron players jumps to the forefront of our statistical process. Luckily, the immensely positional nature of Innisbrook's layout means that many players will be forced to play from the same spots coming into greens, and has resulted in one of the more skewed approach distributions we've seen all year. Approximately 47% of historical approach shots here have come from beyond 175 yards, and only 32% have come from inside of 150.

Innisbrook is very much a mid/long-iron course, as I project players to have a 175+ yard approach shot on at least 11 of their 18 holes. We'll be leaning heavily into approach metrics/proximity splits from those specific ranges, and virtually every player in consideration for my outright card this week will need to possess a proven aptitude with a middle/long-iron in hand.

Innisbrook by the Numbers (Around the Greens):

• Scrambling Percentage -- 59.1%; 1.6% above Tour Average 
• Sand Save Difficulty -- (+0.009); 17th easiest on Tour
• SG: Around the Green Difficulty: (+0.020); 10th easiest on Tour

For a golf course that has produced one of the lowest GIR rates and one of the higher scoring averages on the PGA Tour, top five finishers at Innisbrook have surprisingly not been all that reliant on their short games. Around the Green play has accounted for just 13.6% of total strokes gained, and over the last four years, we've seen players like Jason Kokrak, Brian Harman, and Max Homa attain top finishes despite hemorrhaging strokes around the greens.

This isn't to say that short game is completely useless in predicting success here, as many recent champions here at Innisbrook have done so on the back of an elite short game. Five of the last nine winners here have gained at least 3.0 strokes Around the Greens, and no Valspar Champion since 2012 has lifted this trophy whilst losing strokes to the field in this area.

What Innisbrook does provide is a bit of forgiveness in regards to the difficulty of the short game shots required. Over the last three seasons, Innisbrook has ranked in the bottom half on Tour in Scrambling Difficulty from the Fairway, the Rough, and the Sand, and since 2015, the Copperhead Course has ranked as the 10th easiest course to gain strokes around the greens.

Around easier greenside surrounds, I tend to devalue the merits of an elite short game, and instead look to simply filter out those with clear deficiencies in this area. After all, with a historic GIR % of just 57%, players will be forced to scramble at a much higher rate than on a normal week on Tour, but I don't believe you need to possess a Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas-level short game to adequately navigate the short game shots required.

Innisbrook by the Numbers (Putting):

• Average Green Size: 5,822 sq. feet
• Agronomy -- TifEagle Bermudagrass w/ Poa Trivialis overseed
• Stimpmeter: 12
• 3-Putt Percentage: 2.9% (0.1% below Tour Average)
• Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: (-0.004); 10th toughest on Tour

As we alluded to in last week's article, Innisbrook is one of the key agronomic corollaries to the greens we saw at TPC Sawgrass. Playing at a similar speed, at a similar time of year, and with similar dimensions, it's difficult to find a more fitting parallel when projecting putting performance. Of course, two other key comps can be found earlier this year at PGA West and TPC Scottsdale.

This volume of recent comparables is a welcome sight to handicappers at a tournament where putting has been the #1 predictor of high-end finishes. Top five finishers here historically have gained over 37% of their total strokes on the greens, and over the last 11 years, only Paul Casey in 2019 has managed to lift this title whilst gaining less than 3.0 strokes putting for the week.

My process might be different if this field included a multitude of players with ball-striking ceilings that come overcome the historic reliance we've seen players place on putting here at Innisbrook, but even in one of the Valspar's strongest fields in recent memory, it's difficult to find many names you'd feel are capable of replicating Paul Casey's path to victory in 2019 (11.3 SG: Tee-to-Green; +0.4 SG: Putting). Outside of a select few players who do possess that ball-striking prowess (Xander, JT, Finau), I will be looking at a player's historic proficiency on similarly overseeded surfaces as well as recent momentum on the greens leading up to this week.

Key Stats Roundup (in order of importance):

• Proximity Splits/Approach Metrics from 175 yards-plus
• Recent Momentum on the Greens/Historic Putting Performance on simililarly overseeded complexes (TPC Sawgrass, TPC Scottsdale, Austin CC, PGA West, etc.)
• Bogey Avoidance/SG: ARG/Scrambling
• Good Drive %/Driving Accuracy/Past Driving Splits on Comparably Positional Layouts
• Par 5 Scoring

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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

The Sunday Shortlist

Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.

Brian Harman

We're not likely to get much of a discount on Harman off of his runner-up finish at Sawgrass last week, but he's certainly playing well enough to warrant chasing the number in a weaker field. Over four rounds at Sawgrass, the reigning Open Champion produced the second best iron week of his entire career (+9.0), and gained strokes in each of the four statistical categories on route to a 19-under score that would have won him each of the last 27 renditions PLAYERS Championships.

Harman has talked glowingly about his swing progression with his irons since breaking out with a 12th-place finish in Orlando to start the month, and this newfound confidence he holds in shaping the ball both ways into greens has allowed him to gain a whopping 15.6 strokes to the field on Approach over his last two starts. Keep in mind, of course, that each of those events were part of the PGA Tour's Signature Series, and included a much higher caliber of player than we'll be seeing this week in Palm Harbor.

If these recent developments stick around for Harman, we may not yet have seen the true ceiling from 2023's Champion Golfer of the Year, as the former UGA Bulldog already possesses a few of the more bankable skills in the game with his driver and putter. Time will tell just how long this run of form will last, but around a similarly positional test with identical agronomy to Sawgrass, Innisbrook should provide as perfect a backdrop as is possible for Harman to keep the momentum rolling.

Ideally, the community could have cashed in on the widely available 70, 80, and even 100+ to one prices books gifted us last week at the PLAYERS, but the win doesn't always come at the perfect time. There's more than enough in Harman's profile to warrant giving him another shot in the Sunshine State, and given the reduction in field strength, Brian's current trajectory, and a fifth-place finish already to his name around the Copperhead course two years ago, I'd be comfortable backing the Georgian at prices as rich as 22-1.

Doug Ghim

Like Harman, it's unlikely like Doug Ghim will be sneaking up on oddsmakers this week, but we have seen a similarly compelling progression in the New Year out of the 27-year-old Longhorn. Long considered one of the premier ball-striking entities on Tour, Ghim has supplemented his tee-to-green prowess with a continually improving short game in 2024.

Over his last five starts, Doug has gained an average of 2.8 strokes to the field on and around the greens: which amounts to a nearly 3.5 shot improvement over his career baseline. This newfound green-side acumen has earned Ghim one of the flashiest recent form sheets in the sport: logging five straight top 20 finishes, including a 16th-place result at last week's PLAYERS Championship and a 12th in the WM Phoenix Open.

Although those two events come with a much higher profile than the Valspar Championship this week, the three venues do share attributes with their similarly overseeded green complexes. Ghim has gained a total of 4.1 strokes putting through 8 rounds on these surfaces in 2024, and with one of the best combinations of driving accuracy and long-iron play in this field, any sustained life he can find with the putter could go a long way towards finally breaking his winless drought as a professional.

To this point in 2024, Doug Ghim ranks 3rd in this field in SG: Tee-to-Green, 3rd in Bogey Avoidance, 1st in Par 5 Scoring, and 1st in Scoring Average. That's a profile I'd always be interested in buying around Innisbrook, and particularly if some ranking services have him listed as the 15th-20th best golfer in the field. Due to his lower profile and the tendency of books to overvalue more marquee names on the opening line, I don't think it's crazy at all to expect prices bordering on 50-1 on Ghim tomorrow morning. At anything near that price, you can bet I'll be all over the in-form Longhorn.

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