Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – The Valspar Championship

The Valspar Championship Fantasy Sleeper Report

Who’s writing the PGA TOUR’s scripts these days? A fifth day at the fifth major, won by an Irishman on St Patrick’s Day!?

All good movies need a strong main character, and they don’t come much stronger in world golf in 2025 than Rory McIlroy, who clinched his second PLAYERS Championship title on Monday morning.

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The Irishman rode his luck at times – particularly when J.J. Spaun had a putt to win the tournament on the 72nd hole, but winners win… and that’s exactly what McIlroy did over the course of a unique three-hole playoff against Spaun at TPC Sawgrass.

The aggregate scoring system meant that Spaun was pretty much toast the middle he launched his approach at the seventeenth’s island green high, wide, and handsome into the drink, with a triple bogey almost impossible to overcome in this particular format.

So Rory, despite hitting just 48% of fairways and losing strokes to the field around the greens for the week, was able to lift the trophy – his second of 2025 so far. It’s doubtful that the Irishman has ever headed towards The Masters in this good shape for some time…

The curtain falls on the Florida Swing this week with the Valspar Championship, so who will sign off on their Sunshine State endeavours on a high? Given the strength of the field and the unpredictable nature of the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook, our host this week, it would be fair to say that few could be written off.

And when we say unpredictable, we mean unpredictable. Peter Malnati (275/1), Mackenzie Hughes (100/1), and Chandler Phillips (300/1) were all in contention on the Sunday here in 2024, with Malnati hanging tough in the conditions to land his second PGA TOUR title. Hughes and Phillips finished inside the top-four to round a stunning event for longshot backers.

The reasons for the volatility around the Copperhead Course are plentiful, although the weather conditions – and specifically the wind – will be a major factor. The track is tough enough as it is without a Floridan zephyr doing the rounds.

Although a fairly short layout at 7,100 yards for its Par 71, each of the Par 3s is longer than 200 yards, and only five holes on the property – including the quartet of Par 4s – averaged under par here last year. Malnati and Cameron Young were the only players to finish double digits under par in the entire field.

So, you can expect lots of missed fairways, lots of chunked shots out of the juicy rough, and plenty of time spent in sand at the Copperhead Course, where the overseeded Bermuda greens also happen to be on the small and slopy side.

If nothing else, make sure the players you back this week are comfortable in the wind and are the proud owners of a reliable short game. Without those attributes, they might just struggle.

With all that in mind, who makes the grade in our sleeper shortlist for the 2025 Valspar Championship?

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Ben Griffin – 60/1 – Having operated on a busy schedule through the Florida Swing, perhaps missing a challenging weekend at TPC Sawgrass is no bad thing for Ben Griffin.

The ball-striking issues that saw him miss the cut at the PLAYERS are a rarity, rather than the norm, and so we back Griffin to bounce back as a rested man at the Copperhead Course.

At his baseline, he shapes up nicely for the test. Griffin is a reliable fairway finder, well above the TOUR average on approach, and his short game – both on and around the greens – is elite.

T4 at both the Mexico Open and Cognizant Classic, it feels like Griffin’s next title bid is just around the corner.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout – 70/1 – A player with Christian Bezuidenhout’s skillset isn’t going to fire every week on the PGA TOUR – particularly when a silky long game is the key, so the South African’s missed cut at TPC Sawgrass didn’t come as a huge shock.

But he certainly fits the bill at the Copperhead Course, where his solid enough long iron play will be complimented by his brilliance on and around the greens.

According to the OWGR, one of Bezuidenhout’s best days on the PGA TOUR came in the Memorial Tournament, where he finished solo fourth, and host venue Muirfield Village certainly boasts some similarities to the Copperhead Course, with its requirement for long approaches into small greens.

A three-time winner on the DP World Tour, the South African finished T9 at the Valspar Championship last year.

Andrew Novak – 80/1 – The first part of the Florida Swing generally requires premium ball-striking if you are to have any joy.

For Andrew Novak, that’s a part of his game that went missing at the Cognizant Classic and Arnold Palmer Invitational, and it did too – for the most part – at TPC Sawgrass last week.

He missed the cut, but despite that gained a mammoth +4.12 strokes on the field with his ball striking in round two; the fifth best return in what was a world class field.

We’re telling you this because Novak’s short game is, for the most part, excellent on a weekly basis, so there’s a combination of skills at play here that will come in very handy at the Copperhead Course.

Besides which, it isn’t all that long since he recorded T3 and T13 finishes in two trips to Torrey Pines in January/February, and T13 at Pebble Beach too.

Jesper Svensson – 120/1 – One player who is improving week-to-week on the PGA TOUR is Jesper Svensson, who performed admirably on his TPC Sawgrass debut to make the cut and record some eye-catching short game numbers.

The Swede, ironically, has shown some class in his long game in his rookie PGA TOUR season so far, so if he can combine all of the elements of his game at the Copperhead Course, he can kick on once more.

T10 at the Sony Open, Svensson has made the cut in both of his Florida Swing starts to date, and he’s clearly a player on the up. He won his maiden DP World Tour title in 2024, recorded three other second-placed finishes, and landed a T5 at the classical parklands track that is the Brabazon Course at The Belfry for the British Masters.

Danny Walker – 150/1 – This is something of a hot take, but it just feels like it’s getting easier for rookies to make their way on the PGA TOUR since the LIV split.

Last season, six first-timers on the PGA TOUR won their maiden title in their debut year, and you suspect that a handful more will do so over the course of 2025, too.

Whether the Copperhead Course is likely to be a location for that to happen remains to be seen, but in producing a fine display at TPC Sawgrass, rookie Danny Walker showed that he has the game to handle these Floridan conditions.

He’s played well in different departments of the game all-season long, but it was at the PLAYERS where it all came together – especially on Saturday, where he gained a remarkable +7.19 strokes on an elite field from tee-to-green.

Whether Walker is able to replicate that level on a consistent basis remains to be seen, but he’s evidently a player with a very high performance ceiling at his best.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the Valspar Championship here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2024-2025)

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