Valspar Championship Predictions, Expert Betting Picks and Odds March 16-19

Valspar Championship Betting Preview

Sportsmemo golf handicapper Nick Borrman offers his thoughts on the Valspar Championship teeing off from Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, FL. Nick discusses the guys at the top of the odds board, golfers to fade and other expert picks surrounding the The Valspar Championship!

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Valspar Championship	PGA Tour Betting Notes
When:	March 16-19, 2023
Where:	Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, FL
Defending Champ:	Sam Burns
Current Favorite:	Justin Thomas (+1100 at DraftKings)
TV:	Golf Channel & NBC

Valspar Championship Odds Board

Top-10 Total Strokes Gained over the last six months (betting odds via FanDuel or DraftKings)
Justin Thomas +1.63 (+1100)
Justin Rose +1.52 (+2200)
Keegan Bradley +1.44 (+2500)
Matthew Fitzpatrick +1.34 (+1600)
Maverick McNealy +1.19 (+5000)
Adam Hadwin +1.17 (+2800)
Wyndham Clark +1.11 (+4000)
Jordan Spieth +1.09 (+1200)
Brian Harman +0.97 (+4000)
Ben Griffin +0.97 (+5000)

Valspar Championship Course and Field – Copperhead at Innisbrook Resort (Palm Harbor, Florida)

From Nick Borrman:

The Florida swing comes to a finish this week at the difficult Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort. The course plays as one of the toughest on TOUR and features the famed Snake Pit finishing holes #16-18.

One of the craziest stats you will ever see is that no Valspar champion has ever finished under par for the tournament on the Snake Pit. Grab the lead and hang on tight!

Copperheard plays to a par 71 but not in the form you would expect. There are five par 3s to go along with the standard four par 5s and all but one of those par 3s plays to over 200 yards.

Fairways feature plenty of doglegs and are tree-lined making placement in the fairway very important this week.

As with most Florida courses, sand is plentiful with 84 bunkers while water is in play on several holes. However, the story this week will be the weather.

Thursday is forecasted to be a perfect opening round with temperatures in the 70s, sunny skies and relatively calm winds, but it gets worse after that. Winds are projected to be 15-25 mph on Friday and Saturday with gusts reaching 35 mph.

Thunderstorms look inevitable on Saturday which will certainly delay play and may make for a long day Sunday or even push the finish into Monday. It’s hard to argue a draw advantage though.

Thursday morning will be at a slight advantage as always with pristine greens on the best scoring day, but then they get the worst of it on Friday afternoon.

However, winds are expected to roll in early Friday morning so even the early wave on Friday won’t be spared, although they likely have a few holes with less wind.

With weather expected to be such a factor, tee to green game must be prioritized when making your predictions this week.

The field features only five of the World Top-20 and 17 of the Top-70, so expect some longshots to contend.

Sam Burns is the two-time defending champ, but odds seem stacked against him to three-peat as he is not in great form and nobody has won three straight TOUR events since Steve Stricker at the John Deere Classic from 2009-2011.

Valspar Championship Predictions

The top of the board looks less attractive than any odds board this year. None of JT, Fitzpatrick or Burns are in particularly good form so the good news is that we can easily get into the 20-1 and 30-1 range quickly.

Outright Winner

Ben Griffin +5000 DraftKings

Griffin is a Korn Ferry Tour graduate from last year and is having a fantastic rookie season thus far.

After missing the cut in his first start this season at the Fortinet, he has since made 12 of 13 cuts including each of the last two designated events in Florida, finishing T14 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and T35 last week at THE PLAYERS.

Griffin has six finishes inside the Top-25 this season and has performed especially well in the weaker field events:

T24 Sanderson Farms
T3 Bermuda Championship
T16 Houston Open
T12 Sony Open in Hawaii
T21 Honda Classic

The one negative is that Griffin has played in all three Florida events thus far so fatigue could be a factor this week, but with finishes of T21, T14 and T35 he clearly likes playing in the sunshine state.

Griffin ranks #30 SG Tee to Green this season including #15 in this field, gaining strokes in all five categories. His #17 ranking SG Around the Green will likely come in handy this week too.

Top-10 & Top-20 Leaderboard Finish

Robby Shelton Top-10 +750 (DraftKings) | Top-20 +320 (Bet365)

Love the number on Shelton this week. Like Griffin, Shelton has been very consistent this season making the cut in 11 of 14 events.

Also, like Griffin, Shelton has done most of his damage in the weaker field events with seven Top-25 finishes:

T21 Fortinet Championship
T15 Shriners Children’s Open
T23 Bermuda Championship
T10 RSM Classic
T6 The American Express
T20 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
T21 Honda Classic

Shelton hasn’t been great Off the Tee this season, which could be a problem here where finding the fairway is important, but his iron play has been great ranking #36 SG Approach along with a strong short game ranking #16 SG Around the Green.

He also ranks #36 in overall proximity to the hole. He has a similar profile to Griffin, so you can see the type of player I am targeting this week.

Favorite to Fade

Sam Burns +1800

It’s tough to want to fade the two-time defending champion but Burns is clearly trending in the wrong direction.

Over the last 12 months, Burns ranks #3 in this field in Total SG with much of his success coming on the greens at +0.89 while Tee to Green he has averaged +0.40. That’s not a great profile to rely on with the wind expecting to be such a factor.

If we look at more recent sample sizes, Burns’ putting has remained consistent, but his ball-striking has fallen to +0.05 SG Tee to Green over the last six months while losing -0.13 over the last three months.

To back up the data, Burns has finished T35, MC, MC in his last three starts. I’m not suggesting he will miss the cut this week, but I see no value in backing him on the Outright or Leaderboard markets and is likely a good player to fade in H2H Matchups.

See you next week in for the Dell Match Play!

Interested in placing a bet on this week’s Valspar Championship? BetMGM is offering a $1,000 Risk-Free Bet for first-time bettors in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Tennessee, Iowa, Michigan, Virginia, Washington DC, Wyoming, Mississippi, Arizona and Louisiana.

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