V For Valspar
Valspar Championship | Stats, Trends & Things You Don't Need To Know
Copperhead Course (Innisbrook)
Par 71 - 7,340 Yards
Fairways Hit: 58.64% (20th hardest out of 51)
Greens Hit: 57.25% (6th hardest out of 51)
Birdie or Better: 17.79% (11th hardest out of 51)
Scoring Average: 70.96 (20th hardest out of 51)
Big Boy Par 3s
Maybe the most unique feature of the Copperhead Course layout are the (5) Long Par 3s. Every single one is over 195 yards on the scorecard and they played a combined 0.51 strokes over par, per round, last year. With those holes making up 27.7% of the routing, I figured we should look at the best golfers on Long Par 3s — defined by 190 yards or longer.
Harold Varner III +0.119 per hole
Alex Noren +0.108
Jason Kokrak +0.102
Zach Johnson +0.099
Dustin Johnson +0.097
Note the chart below — Varner gets better as the Par 3s get longer.
Scramble Heat Check
For those of you living under a rock, Andy Lack and I go LIVE ON YOUTUBE every Tuesday and Friday for a show called The Scramble. We’ve been attempting to bankrupt PrizePicks by giving out props and we are WHITE HOT. We are on a 23-2 run of props and we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Here’s what we gave out on Tuesday:
Alex Noren R1 Under 72 Strokes
Bubba Watson R1 Under 72.5 Strokes
Keegan Bradley R1 Over 11 GIR
Justin Thomas R1 Under 12 GIR
Those lines have probably already moved with how many people are tailing so here’s one more thing that has my interest.
Hole 11 props are available, which is a Par 5 that played to a 4.722 scoring average last year. There are three golfers available who have played hole 11 before:
Justin Thomas: 6/10 overs
Dustin Johnson 6/8 overs
Viktor Hovland 3/4 overs
We can wait to see the wind direction and pin location but the early lean is overs on hole 11.
Play: Code “RICK” — Link: https://bit.ly/3oxONZw
Most Improved Approach
Two golfers in the field have made significant gains in approach play recently.
Since the start of 2022, Adam Hadwin is gaining 0.74 strokes on approach, the 9th best mark in this field. Compare that with the 0.17 strokes he lost per round in 2021 and you’re looking at nearly a full stroke improvement per round in approach play.
Alex Noren played 89 measured rounds last year and lost 0.12 strokes per round during the year. In 2022, he’s gained 0.82 strokes per round! Another full stroke improvement in the approach category.
Those are the two largest year-over-year improvements in the field.
Secret Comp Courses
Andy’s new course breakdown on RickRunGood.com has really opened the nerdy side of my brain recently. He makes the case for using a few different courses as comps for Innisbrook. I won’t spoil the exact courses because Andy deserves the clicks. But here are the best players on those courses for the last four years.
Would You Be Interested?
Would you be interested if I told you a golfer in this field checked all these boxes?
✅ 2nd in SG: T2G Last Week
✅ 2nd in SG: TOT over final three rounds
✅ Played Last 2 Holes at +3, still finished 5th
✅ Took a Garbage Penalty in R2, still finished 5th
✅ Runner-up Finish at Valspar Last Year
If I told you his name was Keegan Bradley, would you still be interested?
Back-To-Back Bracket Weeks!
Next week is the WGC Match Play Event! One of my favorite events of the year! There is also some small amateur thing starting this week.
If you like that collegiate amateur thing, I used math to create the optimal bracket. I know nothing about the game and it’s one of my most popular videos each year. Weird world. Click To Watch.
Baan Breaks Record
Anirban Lahiri did not win THE PLAYERS Championship. But if you backed him in the Jock MKT (stock market DFS), you were part of history. Lahiri closed IPO last week at $1.23/share and paid out $20.00/share. That’s a 1,500+% ROI — the largest in Jock MKT History. Here are the others:
Code "RICK" Play: https://bit.ly/3mnWkdg
Rick Infiltrates The TOUR!
I was asked to join the PGA TOUR’s Twitter Space this week. We covered the course key stats, golfers to watch and a variety of other topics. The information is valuable but I also ask for your support to listen and share it. This is a moment where we can raise DFS/Betting/Data voices to a larger, broader audience. We can show the TOUR that there is a thirst for this type of content.
Remember, Live Chat is Wednesday at 6pm ET! Pushed it back this week with the late start.
Good luck
Rick