Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2024 Valspar Championship

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2024 Valspar Championship  

Valspar Championship Fantasy Preview

It didn’t take detective work of a Netflix true crime documentary level to know that once Scottie Scheffler found his mojo on the greens again, the world of golf was on notice.

His victory at the PLAYERS Championship last week was arguably the least surprising of the year, although the circumstances of it – shooting a final round of 64 while carrying a neck injury – warrant plenty of praise.

Some will feel aggrieved that they weren’t able to convert victory at TPC Sawgrass. Xander Schauffele squandered a strong position for what feels like the umpteenth time during his career, Brian Harman was there or thereabouts, and Wyndham Clark, well, he showed plenty of fortitude to make birdie at seventeen on Sunday before watching his putt at 18 suffer an agonizing lip-out. 

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After a year of chaos so far, with a stack of unpredictable TOUR winners, Scheffler winning one of the biggest events in world golf at least feels like some sort of normality has been resumed.

The Florida Swing reaches its conclusion this week with the Valspar Championship. Whose got the gas left in the tank after a manic three weeks to pick up the win?

Last Event’s Fantasy Results

Not a bad week for our picks with the 1-2 punch of Scottie and Harman showing up strong!  

Overall, 9 of our 12 picks made the cut at TPC Sawgrass with four total top ten finishers including Scottie (1), Harman (T2), Theegala (9th), and Si Woo Kim (T6).

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2024 Valspar Championship Field

It feels like the part of the calendar when the players start to think about their Masters tune-ups….or even qualifying for the first major of the year at all.

Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, and Justin Thomas have work to do on their respective games, hence their inclusion in the field this week, while Schauffele and Harman will be looking to parlay their PLAYERS form into another sustained run at a trophy.

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Reigning Valspar champion Taylor Moore will look to defend his title – he’s joined in the field by other former winners of this event like Sam Burns, Adam Hadwin, and European Ryder Cup team captain Luke Donald.

Elsewhere, the likes of Keegan Bradley, Cameron Young, Sungjae Im, and Min-Woo Lee might be thinking this is an ideal time to put a trophy on their mantelpiece. 

This Week’s Course Preview

The Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook club might be described as the ‘classic Americana’ of the PGA TOUR.

This is tree-heavy parklands golf in all its glory – a sweeping, 7,340 yard Par 71 with doglegging fairways, tight fairways and, normally, rugged rough left long.

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With smaller-than-average overseeded Bermuda greens, this is a challenging way to bring the Florida Swing to an end – although, of course, we’ve seen other Florida courses like Bay Hill and Sawgrass succumb to low scores after a wetter-than-normal winter, so who knows what will unfold.

A word of a warning about Copperhead’s routing – there’s four Par 5s and five Par 3s to contend with, with the former being the easiest quartet on the course and the latter amongst the most difficult. Indeed, the four Par 3s all measure in excess of 200 yards.

Beware the Snake Pit! The last three holes have been given such a name on account of their ability to gobble up balls like ostrich eggs. Sixteen is a challenging Par 4 with water right and deep tree coverage left, while 17 is a Par 3 measuring a sizable 215 yards and blessed with a tiny green.

The final hole is an uphill Par 4, with a drive into a well-guarded fairway followed by an approach into a viciously-sloping green.

Weather Forecast for Palm Harbor, FL

Good news for golf fans and residents of Florida! Finally, it appears as if a sustained period of good weather is heading your way.

A couple of days of (hopefully) dry weather will lead into a glorious Thursday, where sunny spells will greet the players alongside temperatures of 80 degrees.

There’s the potential for some wild and windy weather on Friday, with plenty of rain in the early forecast and a breeze of up to 20mph.

The weekend should return to sunnier climes, with wind speeds down to around 13mph and temperatures reaching 75 degrees.

PALM HARBOR WEATHER

Last Year’s Results from the Valspar Championship

There was an unlikely band of combatants at the 54-hole stage here 12 months ago, with Jordan Spieth and Tommy Fleetwood joined by Adam Schenk, Taylor Moore, Cody Gribble and the previously out-of-form Webb Simpson within two shots of the lead.

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It was Moore to would hang the toughest of them all, grinding out a superb bogey-free back nine to land his maiden PGA TOUR title in the most challenging of circumstances.

In fairness, some of his closest rivals afforded him a hand. Schenk unluckily found himself behind a tree on the 72nd hole to lose his shot at the trophy, while Spieth’s frenetic end saw him drive into the water and bogey 16 and 18.

Moore simply scythed through the Snake Pit with no alarms – an excellent way to win your first PGA Tour silverware.

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for this Week’s Valspar Championship

The Valspar is quite a tough tournament to gauge, so it’s likely that you’ll need a few lineup variations to get it right in such unpredictable conditions. As such, here’s a couple of multi entry contests to whet your appetite.

• GOLF TOUR $50k Resurgence: One of the lowest rake contests of the week is this $10 entry affair, which promises $10k to the champion with just 5,882 teams in the mix.

• PGA $300k Drive the Green: It’s the $5 standard these days – a price point that allows for a multi-lineup build. And even for your budget entry fee, there’s still $50k going to the winner.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes

It’s likely to be a second shot shootout this week, although there tends to be more than one way to skin the cat at Innisbrook.

Taylor Moore ranked second for Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, fifth for SG: Approach, and ninth for SG: Putting, which by all accounts is a pretty good way to get the job done.

Approach play, particularly from distances of 175 yards and further, is vital at this stretch, not just for scoring on the Par 5s but also for limiting damage on the Par 3s. With such long distances and small greens, it goes without saying that scrambling is a key stat too.

It doesn’t seem to matter too much what you do off the tee, but strong second and third shots are non-negotiable at a venue where the winning score has ranged from -8 to -17 in the past five years alone.

Lovers of correlating courses need look no further than Augusta National for help – Paul Casey, Tiger Woods, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth, Charl Schwartzel, John Senden, and Sean O’Hair are just some of those to have thrived at both.

Torrey Pines, with its long approaches into small greens, is another worthy of a look, while a link between Innisbrook and Colonial – although not easy to fathom – has thrown up eight players that have finished first or second at both venues in less than a decade.

Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Valspar Championship   

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Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

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