Valspar Championship Picks & Analysis

Where: Innisbrook Resort

Watch: Golf Channel, NBC

When: March 16-19

The PGA Tour’s swing through the Sunshine State concludes this week with the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort near Tampa. A field that looks a little top-heavy, with only five of the World Golf Rankings’ top 25 players, will tee it up for shares of an $8 million purse, including $1.5 mill to the winner, before taxes, of course.

Previous Tourney

Last week Scottie Scheffler shot four rounds in the 60s and pulled away on Sunday to win the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass by five shots over Ty Hatton. In doing so, Scheffler provided a +1000 payout for his financial backers who bet at Bovada.

Tom Hoge and Viktor Hovland tied for third; Hideki Matsuyama finished fifth; Max Homa, Justin Suh and Rose, David Lingmerth, Sungjae Im, Cam Davis, and Min Woo Lee tied for sixth.

Valspar Championship Betting Preview

The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook, home to this PGA event since its inception in 2000, plays to a par-71 at around 7,340 yards.

Last year Sam Burns defended his 2021 Valspar title when he birdied the second hole of a playoff with Davis Riley to win again. Justin Thomas and Matthew NeSmith tied for third; Matt Fitzpatrick and Brian Harman T-5; and Sadith Theega-la, a 48-year-old Stewart Cink, Kevin Streelman, Robert Streb, and Adam Hadwin T-7.

Burns shot -17 to win the Valspar two years ago, then shot -17 to reach last year’s playoff with Riley. In fact, Burns owns eight straight rounds in the 60s at Innisbrook. But over the previous six Valspar Championships, the average winning score was only -9.

The last player to win a PGA Tour event three times in a row remains Steve Strick-er, who took the John Deere Classic each year from 2009-2011.

Valspar Championship Bets

Each week we take a look at the online betting sites and highlight what we believe to be some of the best values on the board, with a few free picks to click. Odds to win and pairings for this week can be found at Bovada. Here’s our take on some of the field in this week’s Valspar Championship.

Last week we whiffed with our three top picks for The Players Championship, Ja-son Day, Patrick Cantlay, and Keegan Bradley. Day and Cantlay actually didn’t play too badly and finished T-19, while Bradley missed the cut.

Jordan Spieth, the 2015 Valspar champion, and Justin Thomas top Bovada’s Valspar Championship betting board at +1200. Burns and Fitzpatrick come next at +1600. From there, everybody else is getting at least +2500.

Adam Hadwin +2800 to win

Canadian Hadwin won the Valspar in 2017 with a 14-under performance and took a T-7 here last year, opening with a 64 but finishing with a 72. He also owns three top-10 finishes this season and took a T-13 last week at The Players, with no round higher than 71. So 28/1 sounds like good value on a guy like this in a field like this.

Justin Suh to finish top-5

Californian Suh started slowly this season, missing the cut in his first three tournaments, but he’s made 11 straight since then. Along the way, he led the Honda Clas-sic at PGA National three weeks ago after two rounds, eventually finishing T-5, then took a T-6 at The Players last week. This tournament will be Suh’s first time at Innisbrook, but we certainly like his recent form.

David Lingmerth to finish top-5

Swede Lingmerth also owns some good recent form, with five top-11 finishes over his last 11 tournaments, including a T-10 at the Honda three weeks ago and a T-6 last week at The Players. And we liked what we saw when Lingmerth shot three rounds of 67 and better at Sea Island earlier this season.

The first groups for this Valspar Championship go off Thursday morning at 6:40 ET. Bet your Valspar predictions live-in-progress at the web’s best PGA betting site: Bovada Sportsbook!