After the Monday finish to THE PLAYERS Championship, the PGA TOUR completes its four-week stay in Florida with a stop at the Valspar Championship this week. The Valspar Championship will be held in Palm Harbor, Florida, just outside of Tampa. The famous Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort will be another tough test for players as they prepare for the Masters in a few weeks. The famous “Snake Pit” usually makes for a dramatic finish, so let’s take a look at the history of the event and the course as we get ready for another great week of golf.
The history of the event
The current tournament was founded in 2000 as the Tampa Bay Classic and replaced the JCPenney Classic, which had been held at this same course since 1990. It has had multiple sponsors including Chrysler, PODS and Transitions, but it has been known as the Valspar Championship since 2014.
It was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. Since then, Sam Burns won twice before Taylor Moore won in 2023 and Peter Malnati claimed the trophy last year. The win was the first for Malnati in nine years and came after an impressive closing round of 67. He finished two strokes clear of Cameron Young, who finished solo runner-up. Chandler Phillips and Mackenzie Hughes tied for third while Ryan Moore, Carl Yuan, Xander Schauffele and Adam Hadwin all tied for fifth.
While it isn’t as huge as THE PLAYERS, this event has an $8.7 million purse with just over $1.5 million going to the winner. The winner also receives 500 FedEx Cup points.
A closer look at the course
The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook is a tough challenge that again places a large emphasis on ball-striking. Like the other recent Florida courses, Copperhead features tight, tree-lined fairways and plenty of water hazards all across the layout.
The hardest stretch of the course is a dramatic, three-hole finishing stretch given the nickname “The Snake Pit.” No. 16 kicks off the stretch as a long par-4 with a narrow fairway guarded by water on one side. The 215-yard, par-3 17th features a very small green with bunkers, tees and grandstands surrounding the tiny landing area. The finishing hole has one of the most difficult elevated sloping greens on the PGA TOUR. All three holes feature over an 18% bogey rate and under a 10% birdie rate, and even the winner has never played the Snake Pit at better than even par for the tournament.
This par-71 presents tight doglegs and some of the most challenging par-3s in the regular PGA TOUR rotation. The greens are pure Bermuda, and typically, long iron play and good putting on Bermuda are the skills that carry the day. It’s a course where long iron and Bermuda putting specialists thrive.
Here’s an in-depth overview:
Backing players who are solid, steady producers who typically do well on difficult layouts relative to par is the way to go once again this week. As a shot-makers course, Strokes Gained: Approach is always paramount, and Scrambling and Bogey Avoidance will be key. Since it plays as a “less than driver” course, distance off the tee is less important and gaining strokes around the green and with strong iron play is usually the recipe for success.
