Looking for Valspar winner to pay off well at window
While we sit just three weeks away from the Masters, this week’s test on tour is more of a prep race for the U.S. Open. It is the Valspar Championship, staged on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla., and despite the tournament suffering a bit of a bad draw on the tour schedule, it is a dandy of a golf course and 14 of the top-30 ranked players in the world are there.
The Copperhead Course is a Par 71 that is an atypical Florida track. It features doglegs and narrow, tree-lined fairways, a fair amount of sand but not an extreme amount of water hazards like we saw last week at TPC Sawgrass, at the Honda Classic last month, and at Bay Hill two weeks ago. It is very traditional U.S. Openlike course where ball striking, accuracy off of the tee, putting and scrambling take precedence over a power game. THE PLAYS Webb Simpson (18/1): Simpson has good course form here in Palm Harbor and the skill set to match what the course demands as a very good Bermuda grass putter and the 10th-best scrambler on tour.
His current form is strong, as well. In seven events this season, he hasn’t missed a cut and hasn’t finished worse than 39th. He was eighth here last year and also has a U.S. Open victory to his credit at Olympic Club in San Francisco.
Louis Oosthuizen (40/1): The sweetswinging South African has finished runner up in every major championship and did win the Open Championship at St. Andrew’s in 2010, so when healthy and clicking, all facets of his game are championship-caliber. I expect him to be in the hunt this week and would not be surprised by a top-10 finish.
Ryan Moore (50/1): Moore is a classic, ball-striker/putter combination player. Doesn’t hit it too far but is one of the more accurate players on tour both off of the tee and into the greens. Against the strongest field in golf last week at the Players, he took 20th. Russell Knox (50/1): Another top ball striker, Knox has been on a nice run, having not missed a cut since early October 2018. In six attempts here, he’s missed the cut twice but took 16th last season.