The Fringe

PGA DFS preview: Valspar Championship and the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook

Good morning!

I hope everybody is enjoying The Players. It looked like it might turn into a blowout, but an eventful moving day restored the drama to the weekend.

Before we get down to business, I want to share a short note on my usage of the term ‘one-off’.

I have been using one-offs for a while now, but up until recently I have been building all the lineups I need and then just randomly inserting my one-offs wherever they fit by swapping golfers. I am now more conscientious of where I put them. Instead of just randomly inserting them, I now build less lineups than I need for the number of contests that I entered. I then add lineups by selecting a lineup and swapping my one-off in, ending up with two lineups that have five golfers in common.

I will also do this for as many lineups in which I can reasonably swap golfers (I am not going to leave $500 on the table just to get a one-off into a lineup). When this happens, a one-off might actually appear in two or three lineups.

The sentiment is the same though, my one-offs are usually golfers that I do not entirely trust but want to get some exposure to. I might just use them more than once, and the lineups that they are in will be similar to other lineups in my pool.

The Past

Congratulations to howard8938 on winning the $70k Birdie for the Arnold Palmer Invitational with 539 points. Their lineup swept the podium with first-place finisher Scottie Scheffler, second-place finisher Wyndham Clark, and third-place finisher Shane Lowry. They also had a couple of T8s. Jason Day was the weak point of the lineup, finishing tied for 36th.

Their margin of victory was 4.5 points.

DraftKings went back to their standard 6k through 10k+ pricing for the API, so howard8938 was able to follow a more typical stars-and-scrubs build to get to the winning lineup. Since they rostered Scottie Scheffler at 11.3k, they skipped the 9ks and rostered two golfers in the 8ks instead. The rest of their lineup looked like a standard stars-and-scrubs build with two 7k golfers and one 6k golfer.

Howard8938 only entered five lineups into the Birdie (out of a possible 20), and the winning lineup was the only one to get across the pay line. Their second-best lineup finished in 17383rd place, over 10,000 places away from getting paid. I am sure howard8938 doesn’t care, the one lineup was good for $6,000.

Although they only had five lineups in the contest, howard8938 had 23 golfers in their player pool. That is more golfers than I rostered, and I entered 20 lineups. It would probably be more sustainable to roster half as many golfers, since making a handful of good picks would drag more lineups across the pay line, and with only five lineups, you only need to get a few paid off to have a profitable week. But you do not need to worry about sustainability if you are going to take down $6,000 prizes.

Their largest exposures were to Jason Day at 80% and Jordan Spieth at 60%. They also had Adam Scott and Scottie Scheffler in 40% on lineups. They rounded out their lineups with 19 one-offs. I would not have used so many one-offs, but I can get behind starting with a tight core.

Howard8938 rostered two golfers from the 10k+ range, three from the 9ks, six from the 8ks, seven from the 7ks and five from the 6ks. Their distribution, despite having more golfers than I would roster, was pretty close to what I would look for. I would’ve cut the number of 8k and 6k golfers, but the rest looks good.

Cumulative ownership for the lineup was 80.8%, just a hair outside of the range that we typically shoot for (60-80%). With Scottie Scheffler at 32%, it was understandably hard to stay inside that range. Their distribution of chalk and lower-owned golfers was quirky but acceptable. They used five golfers above 20% and four golfers below 5%, which seems like a lot but given that so many of them were one-offs, you can think of the similarly priced golfers as one golfer, and then it does not seem so bad. They also had six golfers from the 15-20% range, four from the 10-15% range, and four golfers from the 5-10% range.

Sorry, I spent last weekend at the Wauwatosa Curling Club and did not pay much attention to my lineups, so this is not going to be the most detailed review of my player pool. One thing was clear through, it was a very disappointing week for me in the Birdie at the API. I went into the weekend with 11 lineups that had all six golfers through the cut. Normally I would be ecstatic with a number like that but remember that just 11 golfers did not make the cut. I forgot to check Cutsweats, but I assume the number of 6/6 lineups was extremely high. Still, I had plenty of opportunities to make something of the week. My guys just didn’t perform (that is my player pool above). I only had three golfers inside the top ten, and I didn’t have much exposure to any of them. In the end, just three of my lineups managed to get paid. My best finish was 5,148th, and I got a quarter of my money back.

My One-and-Done selection was Rory McIlroy who finished T21. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I forgot to actually enter my selection. So, I got zero dollars on the week and slipped in the ranks, but I still have Rory to use, hopefully in an event in which he performs better.

Click on the underlined text for the full story.

Fittingly for the the number one player in the world coming off a big win, Scottie Scheffler was all over the news this week. We learned about the new putter that carried him to victory at the API (there is an update on Will Zalatoris and Rickie Fowler in this one), and the small change to his putting routine. We also learned that he has been dealing with neck pain at The Players, but it doesn’t seem to have slowed him very much.

There were other gear changes spotted this week. Collin Morikawa introduced a new putter at the API and brought it back for The Players. Lucas Glover made the switch to a new broomstick, but lost 0.588 strokes putting and missed the cut at The Players. And Cameron Young was seen giving a two-wood a try. It would be in his bag permanently, but he could bring it out for specific courses.

The Present

The PGA Tour is in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for The Players Championship at the TPC at Sawgrass (Stadium Course). Xander Schauffele (-17) is heading into the final round with a one-shot lead over Wyndham Clark. Brian Harman is two strokes off the pace.

The winds came as expected on Thursday, very light in the morning and moving up to 5-6 mph for the afternoon. It is a little surprising, but the PM wave actually enjoyed the advantage on Thursday. Perhaps the winds never got strong enough to really impact play. The winds were close to expected on Friday. It looked like they would be a little stronger overall and build throughout the day. They were a little stronger, but they were consistent throughout the day and the AM wave got a small advantage. The PM/AM wave ended up with a fairly significant advantage overall.

Here is the full breakdown from @RobBoltonGolf:

Round 1 average: AM 71.85; PM 71.22

Round 2 average: AM: 72.04; PM: 72.38

AM/PM total: 144.23

PM/AM total: 143.26

Advantage: AM/PM by 0.97 strokes

One thing we need to note for the Florida Swing is that play usually gets suspended due to darkness and a few groups are left to finish their rounds the following day.

There were no WDs prior to the event. Tom Kim withdrew during the 1st round with an illness and Garrick Higgo withdrew during the second round with a wrist injury.

Here is how the chalk is performing after three rounds (% from the $125k Birdie):

NBC will have final round coverage from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. ET. The stream on ESPN+ started at 7:30 a.m. ET.

The Future

The PGA Tour is heading to the outskirts of Tampa for the most colorful tournament in the world and the final leg of the Florida Swing, the Valspar Championship at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club in Palm Harbor.

The Valspar was an alternate-field event when it first appeared on the PGA Tour schedule in 2000 (opposite the Presidents Cup in 2000, cancelled in 2001, and opposite the WGC-American Express Championship in 2002). In 2003, it became a standard full-field event played in October. It stayed as a Fall-swing event for a few years before finding a more permanent spot on the calendar in March of 2007. It was played in March until 2020, when it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. When the tournament returned in 2021, it was played in April. It was back in its traditional spot for 2022.

The tournament not only had trouble pinning down a date on the calendar, but it also had trouble locking down a title sponsor. Since its founding, the tournament has been known as the Tampa Bay Classic from 2000 to 2002, the Chrysler Championship from 2003 to 2006, the Pods Championship (storage units, not detergent) in 2007 and 2008, the Transitions Championship from 2009 to 2012, the Tampa Bay Championship in 2013, and finally the Valspar Championship in 2014.

Despite hopping from date to date and sponsor to sponsor, the tournament has always been played on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook.

Since moving to March, winning scores usually fall between -4 and -15. Last year, Taylor Moore was in the clubhouse at -10, tied with Adam Schenk as he stood on the 18th tee. Schenk put his drive up against tree and struggled just to advance the ball, ultimately making bogey, and giving Moore the win (cutline: +1; median score for cut makers: +1).

Here are the last 10 winners and their scores:

The Field

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the tournament usually saw fields that were a little below average in strength. I am not sure of the reason, but when the tournament returned after being canceled in 2020, it started seeing fields that were above average in strength. Maybe it is just that absence does make the heart grow fonder. Last year, as a non-designated event after a run of four designated event in five weeks, the strength of field slipped to 216 (27th of 43; average was 268).

I suspect that the strength of the field may tick back up a little this year. The best players on tour are already in Florida for The Players and there are a couple of tournaments in Texas before the Masters if they need a break. So, it looks like a few of them are going to stick around for the Valspar. Three of the top ten players in the world are in the field, including Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, and Brian Harman. Other headliners in the field include Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Cameron Young, Sam Burns, and Tony Finau.

The field is set for 156 golfers with two sponsor exemptions and four open qualifiers yet to be determined.

Course Description

Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club is home to four different golf courses, all designed by Larry Packard. Copperhead was the second of the four courses, opening in 1974. The course received some restoration work in 1999 and 2015. The latter restoration work was mainly done to freshen up the putting surfaces and the bunkers, so the overall characteristics of the course stayed the same. Last year, the size of the collars around the greens was reduced, resulting in a buffer of just 21 inches between the green and the rough.

Copperhead is now a 7,340-yard, par-71, technical, Carolina design (it’s in Florida, but definitely has more of a Carolina feel). Although Sam Burns has made the course look relatively easy, Copperhead is regarded as one of the toughest courses on tour and a favorite amongst golfers. Last year, it was the 7th most difficult course on tour (out of 49).

It is a unique layout with five par 3s, nine par 4s, and four par 5s. As usual, the par 5s are the best scoring opportunities on the course. The 605-yard 5th hole only yields a birdie 21% of the time, so golfers are fortunate to come away with a birdie on that one. The only other hole on the course that plays below par is the 380-yard, par-4 12th. Five of the par 4s are over 445 yards, and all of the par 3s are over 195 yards. The 200-yard, par-3 13th hole was the 28th most-difficult hole on tour last year.

The course is highlighted by the Snake Pit, the closing stretch of three holes that often determines the complexion of a round and the tournament itself. It starts with the 475-yard par-4 16th hole that was the 8th hardest hole on tour last year. Golfers then step up to a 215-yard par 3 and close with a 445-yard par 4 that plays up hill.

Here is the official 2024 scorecard:

Off the tee, golfers will be challenged by tight, tree-lined fairways (21 yards wide at 300 yards, 30th widest of 30 measured courses; average is 30.9 yards). They are protected by bunkers and water hazards on nine holes. Many of the fairways are pinched at the 300-yard mark. There are numerous doglegs, and the par 5s even feature double doglegs. The rough is ryegrass overseed (when the tournament was in April, the bermudagrass had come in). The rough is kept 3.75 inches in length. Although longer, the ryegrass is not as penal as bermudagrass. The fairways are also ryegrass overseed. A cool, wet Winter has been great for the growth of the ryegrass, and the rough is expected to be thicker than usual this year. There is only a 23 m difference between the highest and lowest point on the golf course, but there is 91 m of ascent throughout the course, so there are a lot of elevation changes. The routing takes advantage of the area’s natural landscape and undulating terrain in such a way that a number of holes are uphill and there will be some blind approach shots.

On approach, golfers will see smallish greens (5,822 sq. ft.). The greens are a mix of TifEagle bermudagrass and Poa trivialis, but at this time of year they will be 100% Poa. They play medium to firm and are quick (Stimp =12). They are also protected by bunkers and water. The greens are on the small side, but they are also long and thin, making the angle of approach important. They run pure and smooth and are some of the easiest greens to putt on, but the contours and pitch add an element of difficulty to them. The firmness and slope of the greens also work to repel poorly placed approach shots.

With tight fairways and lots of trouble, golfers tend to go with less-than-driver from the tee box to try stay in the fairways, but it doesn’t necessarily help that much. Driving Accuracy last season was 60.7% (tied for 26th of 47; average was 62.1%). There are also some forced layups that also keep the average Driving Distance down. Last year it was just 272.1 yards (32nd of 34; average was 284.9). Even though the course is not exceptionally long, all of the forced layups make it play longer, and golfers will have a disproportionate amount of mid and long irons on their second shot leading to difficult approaches. Greens in Regulation was 60.5% last year (tied for 39th of 47; average was 66.2%). Overall, hitting the greens is more difficult than at most courses, but at least scrambling is not overly difficult. The scrambling percentage was 59.2% (tied for 23rd of 47; average was 58.5).

The Course Table on DataGolf offers more insights into the difficulty of Copperhead. According to Datagolf, it has been the most difficult course off the tee over the last five years. It also has the fourth most-difficult set of par 5s over the same time period and has the second-lowest Greens-in-Regulation percentage (adjusted for field strength).

The Weather

Located just a mile from the Gulf of Mexico, high winds are the norm at this course and play a significant role in the tournament. As of now, it looks like winds will be 10-15 mph on Thursday but will get up to 20-25 mph with stronger gusts for Friday and Saturday before coming back down into the teens on Sunday. There is also the possibility of a storm on Friday. If winds are going to be this high, we will want to target wind specialists and look for wave stacking opportunities.

DFS Strategy

Copperhead is one of the more difficult, technical challenges on tour. Despite its length, it plays like a short course. With forced layups and trouble lurking everywhere, golfers often go less-than-driver off the tee. Simply hitting the fairway is not enough though, they also have to be properly positioned off the tee to have the correct angles into the green.

The course also offers numerous other challenges. Golfers have to be able to move the ball in both directions effectively. Even from the fairway, golfers have to be precise with their irons to hold the greens. The statistics suggest that they will miss the greens more than usual, and golfers will have to rely on a good short game to stay in contention. There are not many birdie opportunities; golfers will need to take advantage of the difficult par 5s, make par on the rest of the holes, and hope they do not destroy their round in the Snake Pit.

As usual, I will start my process by building my course fit model and putting together Recent Form and Course History spreadsheets. I will use my model to target golfers that are accurate off the tee, strong with their mid and long irons, have a tidy short game, and are comfortable putting on Poa trivialis. I will also look for golfers that excel on difficult courses, can take advantage of the par 5s, and can avoid the mistakes that lead to bogey or worse.

A common theme across the Florida Swing is that the courses are tough and will punish any poor play. They are not courses where golfers will be able to find their game, or get right, they have to be coming in playing well. I will, therefore, take a hard look at current form to make sure that anybody I roster has been playing well recently.

I will also give course history strong consideration this week. Experience at these positional-type golf courses will help golfers understand when they can be aggressive off the tee and when they need to lay up, where they need to be in the fairway to have a good approach into the green, and where they can miss to avoid trouble. It should also help with the nuances of the wind and the Poa trivialis putting surface. Despite the 2015 restoration, I am comfortable using data back to 2007, when the tournament was first played in March. I personally think that the results lose their relevancy after a decade or so and will only use data back to 2014. I do not think that the course played so much differently in 2021 that I need to exclude it from my model.

Here is the top ten in Course History from my One-and-Done tool:

1 Sam Burns

2 Davis Riley

2 Tommy Fleetwood

4 Justin Thomas

5 Matthew NeSmith

6 Jordan Spieth

7 Viktor Hovland

8 Scott Stallings

8 Keegan Bradley

10 Sungjae Im

Here are the course fit statistics I will use (all last 100 rounds):

• Off-the-tee:

  • Fairways Gained: It is going to be critical to hit the ball in the fairways, if golfers want to be able to land their approach shots on the green. Driving distance at this tournament is usually one of the shortest on tour, so length off the tee is not that important. I will look at this statistic on courses that are 7,200 to 7,400 yards in length.

  • Good Drives Gained: This week I really want to emphasize accuracy. If golfers are not hitting fairways consistently, I at least want them to be proficient at hitting the green from the rough. I will look at this statistic on courses that are 7,200 to 7,400 yards in length.

• Approach:

  • Strokes Gained: Approach: A staple in my model week after week. I will give it a little extra weighting this week because missing greens can come with a hit to the scorecard. I will look at this statistic on courses that are 7,200 to 7,400 yards in length.

  • Proximity from 175-200 and 200+: Golfers will be going with less-than-driver off the tee much of the time, and as a result, about half of approach shots will be coming from this range; mid and long irons will be the key to success this week.

• Around-the-green:

  • Strokes Gained: Around-the-green: With smaller greens that are contoured to repel approach shots, hitting greens will be difficult, so I will include the around-the-green category in my model this week.

• Putting:

  • Strokes Gained: Putting on Poa trivialis: Putting is another staple in my model, I will switch up the surface as needed. This week, we are looking for Poa trivialis specialists. The other courses on tour with this type of surface are TPC Scottsdale, PGA West Stadium Course (the other American Express courses have it too but we don’t get statistics from them), TPC San Antonio, and TPC at Sawgrass (these courses are all usually listed as Bermuda with Poa trivialis overseed, but the Bermuda is dormant when the PGA Tour comes around).

• Scoring:

  • Strokes Gained: Total at Difficult Courses: Some golfers just seem to step their game up on difficult courses, while others seem to play better in birdie fests. Copperhead is one of the toughest courses on tour each year, I want to roster golfers that are up for the challenge.

  • Par 5 Scoring: With few exceptions, par is going to be a good score on most of the holes. The exceptions are the par 5s (and the rare instances of golfers putting their approach shot close to the pin). Golfers will have to separate themselves by taking advantage of the par 5s.

  • Bogey Avoidance: The winning score usually doesn’t get too much lower than -10. When winning scores are in this range, I like to use BA to identify golfers that limit mistakes that lead to bogey or worse. Golfers will have to hit fairways and greens to have a chance at making birdies and avoid making big numbers when they do not.

After building my model, I usually look at a few other statistics to help make my determinations. This week I will look at Birdies or Better Gained, Par 3 Scoring, Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards, and Strokes Gained: Total in Windy Conditions.

• Although Copperhead is regarded as one of the most challenging courses on tour, Sam Burns got to -17 in his two wins at the Valspar. Even though the winning score was only -10 last year, golfers may have to go low to contend, so I will look at Birdies or Better before finalizing anybody in my player.

• The par 3s are difficult; four out of the five par-3 holes on this course are over 200 yards long and their small greens are surrounded by all sorts of trouble. They only give up birdies about 10% of the time, while bogey is made about 20% of the time. Rather than being scoring opportunities, golfers will be happy to walk away from the par 3s with a par. I want to make sure any golfer that I roster can hold their own on the par 3s.

• Five of the par 4s are between 445 and 475 yards, so I will look at Par 4 Scoring 450-500 yards to confirm that any golfer that I roster will not be struggling on these lengthy holes.

• It looks like the wind will be up for the tournament this year, so I will take a look at Strokes Gained: Total in Windy Conditions to try to find the wind specialists.

I will also build a model that includes statistics that are only available using The Rabbit Hole on Betsperts.com. This model will include Strokes Gained: Off the Tee on Very Difficult Off the Tee Courses, Strokes Gained: Off the Tee on Less-than-Driver Courses, Strokes Gained: Approach on Courses with Difficult GIR Accuracy, Strokes Gained: Around the Green, Strokes Gained: Putting on Poa trivialis, Strokes Gained Total on Courses with High Water Danger, and Strokes Gained: Total on the Florida Swing.

Turning to the Roster Construction Matrix, we have a difficult course and a medium strength of field. Under these conditions, the matrix indicates that we should consider stars-and-scrubs lineups. The stars in the field have had success at the Valspar, so my early lean is to go with the stars-and-scrubs build. I want to see what kind of scrubs I will have to fill out my roster with before making my final determination though. If you do not like the scrubs that are available, there seems to be enough talent in the field to build viable balanced lineups.

As always, we should be on the lookout for ways to get leverage on our opponents. We will start in the same two places we start our search for leverage every week, then move onto to other ways to get leverage specific to this tournament. The first is the ownership projections, where we will try to identify the chalk, and then look for good pivots off the chalk. The next place we should look is in the pricing; identify golfers that are priced too low and consider fading them because they will likely be over-owned and identify the golfers that are priced too high and give them consideration because the DFS community will try to avoid them.

I think that the first part about looking for pivots will be especially important this week. Unlike the equal distribution of ownership that we have been seeing over the past couple events, we are probably going to get concentrated ownership around the more familiar names. There should be plenty of chalk to fade to get leverage, but there should also be plenty of low-owned golfers with which to get leverage as well. Instead of having to get creative with the structure of our builds (e.g., spending less than the salary cap), we should be able to find leverage simply by looking at the projected ownerships.

I also think the default position for most DFS players is to go with stars-and-scrubs lineups. This means you can usually get leverage by building balanced lineups.

I do not think that I will be alone in concentrating on accuracy off the tee; the bombers, therefore, could get overlooked. You do not need distance at this course to succeed, but if a bomber isn’t going to get much ownership and they end up having a good week driving the ball, it could be a real boon to our lineups.

Finally, I will continue to use 100% of my usual bankroll this week. I do not see any reason we should be holding back at this point unless you’re in slump and want to be cautious with your money.

That’s all I have for now, be sure to follow me on Twitter (@glzisk) for any updates.

Have a great week!