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The PGA Tour returns to Florida this week for the final Sunshine State stop on the schedule. The Valspar Championship was skipped due to the truncated 2020 Covid schedule, but 156 of the world's best golfers are back, teeing it up at the famed Copperhead Course at Innsbrook Golf Resort, just outside of Tampa.

Past winners at Valspar Championship:

2019: Paul Casey (-8)
2018: Paul Casey (-10)
2017: Adam Hadwin (-14)
2016: Charl Schwartzel (-7)
2015: Jordan Spieth (-10)

Just a reminder, not all of my plays will be highlighted in this article, so check out my full card on the Bet Tracker, along with the rest of the FTN team. Also, follow @FTNAlerts on Twitter to get notifications anytime someone adds a pick to their bet tracker.

The team has also added PGA events to the insanely clutch FTNBets Prop Shop tool. While most books will settle around the same number for outright winners, there are huge swings in pricing in the finishing position (T5, T10, T20, etc.) and round-by-round matchup market.

Cooperhead is often described as one of the Tour's most trying courses. It plays fast and narrow, with elevation changes and tree-lined fairways that make it play more like a Carolina track than your prototypical Florida stop. Scoring opportunities are few and far between, and each hole can be won or lost from the tee. Finding the small, Bermudagrass greens in regulation is a difficult task here and nearly impossible if you're not in the fairway. The unique dispersion of holes here is something to factor in as well, with five long Par-3's on tap each round. I'm focusing on elite ball-strikers while putting a premium on accurate drivers of the golf ball. Ideally, those that lag behind in SG: OTT due to their distance-driven deficiencies. If you're accurate off the tee and gaining everywhere else in the bag, you're on the card.

Player profile for the week:

Form + Accuracy OTT
SG: APP
Bermudagrass positive

Top tier

Justin Thomas (+900) and Dustin Johnson (+1100) are the marquee names this week. I'm always a sucker for JT when immaculate iron play is on the menu, but he's toward the bottom-half on Tour in driving accuracy, and that's often his undoing when he's off. The last time this event was held, five of the top six on the leaderboard were among the top-18 that week in fairways hit.

Before I saw the odds come out, I was locked in on Corey Conners (+1900). I was a little (OK, a lot) less excited after seeing a sub-20 on the board, but it's a too-good-to-be-true combination of golf course fit and form. If I remove my priors on Conners, which are proving to be outdated, and just look at how he's played of late, he deserves to be 19/1 this week. Regardless of whether it's the past six months, three months, or 20 rounds, Conners ranks among the top-three in the field in SG: T2G. Consistent and dominant tee-to-green, Conners is in the midst of a massive improvement on the greens. Shockingly, he's gained strokes putting in four-straight measured events, with strong showings at both the WGC Matchplay and Masters, finishing T17 and eighth at the respective events, though we don't have SG: P data for them. Historically he's fared better on Bermuda, gaining 0.15 strokes above his baseline, so it's a comfortable surface for him even if putting regression kicks in suddenly.

Mid-tier

Since I'm considering them as outright plays and not just finishing position bets, I'm going to label Sungjae Im and Russell Henley as mid-tier plays north of 30/1 odds. If you're only willing to allocate funds to one golfer in this range, I'd lean Henley. The sample size of data proving that Russell Henley (+3300) is one of the best iron players on Tour grows larger by the week. In 2019, Henley's average strokes-per-round on approach was +0.28. He made massive gains in 2020, up nearly three-quarters of a stroke to +0.91. The improvements have proven to be legit, as Henley's 2021 mark sits at +1.05 SG: Approach per round. He checks the other key boxes this week as well. The Georgia native ranks 24th on Tour in fairway-hit percentage, and he's Bermudagrass-positive, gaining the fifth-most strokes above his baseline on these greens.

Bermudagrass greens are also Sungjae Im's (+3100) preferred surface. A poor Sunday at Harbour Town spoiled what was otherwise an encouraging week for Im, who struggled with his irons for a stretch earlier this season before righting the ship of late. Despite not being at his best, Sungjae finished T28, T21, T17, and T8 in the four-event stretch of Florida golf in March. I like him at +320 for a T10 this week, but sprinkling an outright on Sungjae in Florida seems like an auto-bet until further notice.

Longshots

This Chris Kirk (+5500) run is just really cool to see. Kirk's off-the-course struggles are well documented, but he's turned the corner, and it's playing itself out on the golf course as well. Kirk is gaining throughout the bag this season, up 1.23 strokes per round compared to 2020. He's coming to Cooperhead off back-to-back T10's, something he's done in four out of his last eight starts. Kirk is above-average in fairways-hit rate, and fourth in the field in strokes gained above baseline on Bermudagrass greens.

Finishing positions/matchups to consider

Kevin Na's game fits this setup, where clubbing down to find the fairway can be advantageous, and doing so doesn't hurt you when you're dialed in everywhere else. I think he'll find himself in the mix this weekend, with a T20 paying out at 2/1.
Jason Kokrak is streaky. When he's dialed in, his game can compete at any style of course. He's yet to miss a cut this season, finishing inside the top 10 at all three of his Florida stops in March. He's fared at Cooperhead in the past, finishing T2 the last time this event was played.
I'm waiting for all matchups to post and looking to get soft opponents and/or soft prices for Emiliano Grillo, Ryan Moore and Chase Seiffert. If I can't, I'll likely take finishing position bets on each of them.