Valspar Championship Predictions & Picks: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

We don’t do guarantees when it comes to golf betting, but I will give you one lock when it comes to this week’s Valspar Championship: Whichever player holds the lead during Sunday’s back-nine, no matter how big it might be, he won’t feel very confident until he’s signed his scorecard and has his hands on the trophy.

As I’ve written about here, the current Florida Swing has once again reminded us just how difficult it is to win at the highest level, with Shane Lowry, Daniel Berger and Ludvig Aberg holding seemingly convincing leads, only to get passed on the final few laps.

That’s bad news for them, but good news for us, as it not only turns Sunday afternoons into must-see TV, but also offers plenty of live betting opportunities in those late outright markets.

That brings us to the Valspar, which has offered some drama at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course over the years.

Looking back over the past decade, this 7,352-yard par-71 generally favors players who smash it off the tee and hole more putts than most others, though Peter Malnati – one of the game’s shortest drivers – served as the ultimate outlier two years ago, not unlike Brian Campbell in Mexico last season.

And winners, much like at The Players Championship, have usually shown some solid form in their most recent starts entering this one, though defending champion Viktor Hovland appeared as if he was ready to be fitted for a straitjacket coming off three consecutive MCs last year.

All of which suggests we should look at the trends, but not get too locked into them.

One that I am holding to, however, is that we haven’t seen a winner with pre-tourney odds shorter than 50/1 in the past three years. While there’s some talent at the top of the board this week, it’s been a grueling stretch which can help level the playing field, so I’ll start my selections with a pair of outrights which follow that recent pattern.

Valspar Championship Outright Winner Prediction

Conservative Pick: Pierceson Coody (+6600)

Here’s your quintessential Golf Betting Catch-22: After a torrid start to the season, Coody has cooled off in recent weeks, his 14-over two-round total at TPC Sawgrass hardly serving as an indication that he’s about to contend for a title.

When placing our hard-earned money on an outright selection, we usually want to witness some modicum of form during the previous few weeks. Of course, if Coody was still playing the way he started on the West Coast Swing, his price would probably be half this current number, and we wouldn’t want to play him for an outright because the odds were too short.

In a field featuring only a half-dozen top-20 players in the OWGR, we’re simply not going to get the best of both worlds, meaning an optimistic run-up to this event and an outright number that screams value. In this case, I’ll take the latter over the former. I’m a big believer in Coody’s game, and I think he’s ready to win on the PGA Tour right now.

With a T-2 at Torrey Pines already on his resume, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see him in the mix once again – and at this price, I’d be kicking myself if I didn’t play him. 

Aggressive Pick: Eric Cole (+12500)

Valspar Championship Top-5 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Nicolai Hojgaard (+650)

Sometimes I’ll list a player for a top-five because I think he can contend, but I’m not fully confident in his chance to win. This is not one of those times. I admittedly did a little number-hunting with the outright picks above, but I’ll have some Hojgaard at +3500 in that market, as well.

His driver/putter combo matches up well for this venue and his ball-striking was very solid over the weekend at The Players. With eight top-25s in his last nine worldwide starts, he owns a very high floor, but it’s the ceiling I’m reaching for this week, as he should be capable of winning – or at least contending for – this tournament.

And don’t forget the cardinal rule of golf betting: You can’t bet one Hojgaard without the other, so while I like Nicolai better this week, give a little love to Rasmus, too. 

Aggressive Pick: Kristoffer Reitan (+1600)

I’ve already written plenty here about finding value and before the odds were posted for this tournament, I’d believed I found some here, as well. I really thought Reitan would be about double his opening +9000 outright number, which would’ve had me very intrigued.

I’m still bullish and I’ll still play him for this finishing position, but at a price not far off from Coody and Greyserman, it’s tough to play him above either of them. All of that said, the 28-year-old Norwegian proved in both of his DP World Tour victories last year that when he gets it going, he can go super-low. I like him on a pair of driver-heavy courses over the next two weeks, when he can showcase that part of his game.

It still feels like he’s counteracting the good stuff with too many big numbers, but if we’re playing his ceiling, then we should applaud an aggressive mindset. 

Valspar Championship Top-10 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Xander Schauffele (+100)/Matt Fitzpatrick (+140)

It was difficult to figure out what to do with the two hottest players in this week’s field who also happen to own two of the shortest prices on the board. Do I like Schauffele and Fitzpatrick this week? Sure.

I think they can each essentially sleepwalk through a few rounds here and still finish on the first page of the leaderboard. Do I like them to win this tournament? Nope. I’m sure they’ll be popular plays – and for good reason, after going 2-3 at The Players – but after a pair of grueling weeks, it’s tough to believe the gas tank (not to mention their motivation) will be full for this one.

While neither would turn down a much-needed victory, this is about getting in another rep before next month’s Masters and having their best stuff in Augusta. I like the idea of a top-10 parlay here, despite the figurative hangovers after contending last week.

Aggressive Pick: Taylor Moore (+600)

It’s been a wild turnabout for Moore, who finished last season ranked 121^st on the FedEx Cup points list, lost his full playing privileges, then got into the Cognizant Classic field and finished in a share of second place, lifting him into a PGA Tour signature event the very next week.

When we talk about the PGA Tour being a meritocracy, these are the types of stories we want to see, with players at least having the ability to improve their status based on performance. Of course, Moore isn’t one of those guys who’s yet to prove he can hang at this level. He won the Valspar just three years ago, beating a field of contenders that included Jordan Spieth, Tommy Fleetwood and Wyndham Clark right behind him, then added three more top-fives later that season.

Now fighting to continue on that preferred track, he should have tons of motivation to play well here once again. 

Valspar Championship Top-20 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Mac Meissner (+275)

There are plenty of things I love about golf betting, but perhaps the thing I love most is that it makes us more intelligent fans of the game. Ten years ago, before PASPA was overturned and sports gaming started becoming legalized by the individual states, a guy like Meissner would’ve been unrecognizable by all but the most ardent fans, just another player filling out fields whose name you wouldn’t know.

These days, however, even casual bettors could tell you that Meissner is an up-and-comer who doesn’t really have any weaknesses in his game, gaining strokes off the tee, on approach and with his wedges, while barely losing strokes with his putter. He’s played this event twice before and finished 26^th-28^th, so I like him to improve on those by just a notch or two this week. 

Aggressive Pick: Adrien Dumont de Chassart (+450)

Speaking of doing everything pretty well, ADDC owns a fairly similar statistical profile to Meissner, with positive numbers in all three tee-to-green categories and a putting number just below average. He’s yet to cash a top-20 ticket this season, but has missed it by just a shot or two on three separate occasions, with results of T-24 at the Sony Open, T-23 at the Cognizant Classic and T-26 at the Puerto Rico Open.

On a course where his length should be an advantage, I like him to improve on those results by a notch or two, as well – just like Meissner.

Valspar Championship Top-40 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Marco Penge (+120)

I will fully admit that I’m doing the whole Penge thing wrong here. It’s been an ominous start to his PGA Tour career for last year’s three-time DP World Tour champion, as a T-16 at the Genesis Invitational has been his only top-60 result in five starts. Really, the way to play Penge is for a ceiling projection when we least expect it, but I’ll go for some baby steps here as he tries to find his feet on American soil.

Like many others, I entered the year more bullish on Penge than any other rookie and I still believe that he’s going to do some big things, though his performance so far hasn’t exactly inspired confidence. I’ll take him for the top-40 here, but if you haven’t veered from that preseason notion, considering him in the outright market at +9000 might not be the worst idea. 

Aggressive Pick: Jackson Suber (+300) and Jimmy Stanger (+240)

Plenty of similarities here, as we get to play a couple of Tampa natives who have already competed in this event a few times and should own plenty of motivation to bring their best stuff in front of the home crowds. Suber finished T-4 while stepping down to the Korn Ferry Tour last month, though he’s still seeking something better than T-63 on the PGA Tour this season, while Stanger has actually cashed top-40 tickets in each of his last two starts.

Valspar Championship First-Round Leader Prediction

Conservative Pick: Jordan Spieth (+4000)

Regular readers of my weekly previews know that I often base FRL plays on high-variance players who can pop for a single round, a strategy which has led to FRL cashes on Austin Smotherman and Sahith Theegala in the past three weeks. Nobody embodies this idea better than Spieth right now, as he’s playing some very solid golf with a poor hole or two mixed into most rounds.

He finished T-32 last week with a pair of sub-70 rounds and while seemingly everyone in the field posted some circles and squares, he posted 18 birdies, nine bogeys, two doubles and a triple – all of which suggests that when it’s good, it can be really good, but when it’s not, it’s really not. That might not be the kind of player I want to back for an outright – not yet, at least, though maybe at a certain tournament next month in Georgia? – but he remains the perfect play for a single-round investment. 

Aggressive Pick: Luke Clanton (+8000)

Everything I just wrote about Spieth factors here, as well, just on a much smaller scale. Clanton was believed to be a can’t-miss superstar, but it’s not happening for him at the moment.

That said, there is some reason for optimism, as he followed five MCs and a WD dating back to last year with a T-5 in Puerto Rico two weeks ago. I don’t know that he’s ready to start contending for titles again like he did as an amateur, but I do love the single-round upside of his offensive firepower on this golf course.