The Valspar Championship was originally called The Tampa Bay Classic and was created in 2000. Although it is referred to as being in Tampa, the course is located in Palm Harbor which is about 45 minutes northwest of downtown Tampa.
Generally, I find that this event flies under the radar as far as PGA Tour events go. This may be due to the area being, what I consider, more of a ‘tennis town’ than a ‘golf town.’ Tampa gets as much rainfall as any area in Florida, but it’s also the lightning capital of the US (hence the Tampa Bay Lightning NHL team). There’s not much in the way of great golf in the Tampa/Clearwater/St. Pete area. The closest for really good golf is either in Sarasota or about an hour north in the Ocala/Brooksville area. And with the Tour shifting the schedule so it’s the week after The PLAYERS Championship and the week before the World Match Play event, that will likely mean weaker fields in the future.
It’s too bad because Tampa is one of my favorite cities in the country and Clearwater (just south of Palm Harbor) is always a fun place to be. Tampa’s infrastructure and charm of the old south, Cuban heritage, combined with it being one of the first place where northeasterners came to actually reside in Florida full-time and the modern urban touch along with it having a sleepy beach town appeal make it very unique.
And the Copperhead course at Innisbrook is well received by the fans and the players. It’s a pretty king-sized course though. And the par-5’s are critical to a player’s success there.
Unfortunately, that means the 14th hole is the last Critical Hole on the course and it can make the event rather anticlimactic.
This is one of the easier driving holes on the course. The average tee shot will go roughly 290 yards and they will find the fairway about 62% of the time. There’s no water or fairway bunkers here either.
However, what makes this a Critical Hole is that the 2nd and 3rd shots are at about the average in terms of difficulty while this is one of the most difficult putting greens on the course. So there’s a greater variance in performance on the 2nd and 3rd shots here and those that hit it well on the 2nd and/or 3rdshots have a sizeable advantage because of the difficulty of the putting green.
Projected Winning Score: -11
3JACK’S FAVORITES
Dustin Johnson +550
Jon Rahm +1,000
Sergio Garcia +1,600
Webb Simpson +2,000
Gary Woodland +2,200
Jim Furyk +3,300
3JACK’S DARK HORSE PICKS
Jason Kokrak +4,000
Ryan Moore +5,000
Michael Thompson +10,000
Dylan Frittelli +17,500
3JACK
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