Valspar Championship 2016: Player Breakdown and History

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I get it – you want the PGA Beta to launch already. Me telling you that it is coming soon is probably starting to feel like the times when you are at the movies in January and see an awesome trailer for Expendables 7 only to have the trailer conclude with “coming next Christmas.” It may feel that way, but I can assure you that the PGA tools are in fact, coming very soon. For now, I will continue to feed you with some course history and statistics to take into the upcoming tournament. Let’s get to it.

This week the PGA tour stays in Florida as players prepare to tee it up for the Valspar Championship at the Copperhead course at the Innisbrook Resort. The Valspar Championship’s field holds true to form by not showcasing as much of the top talent as last week’s stop at the WGC Cadillac – most top players take this week off before returning to action next week for the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club and Lodge. With that said, there are still plenty of talented players, including defending champion Jordan Spieth in the field.

Course History

Staying true to our form, here are the top-25 finishers from the past five years at the Valspar Championship.

Next, we can narrow this list down to five when looking at which players have accomplished that feat at least three times since 2011. This list excludes any players who are not currently in the field.

I would be remiss to not mention that Jim Furyk would be included, but is not in the field this week. You will all learn that as an honorary member of ‘Team Ugly Swing’ myself, I will take any opportunity to mention Jimmy.

At last year’s Valspar Championship, Jordan Spieth started his tear through the 2015 season by nailing a walk-off birdie putt from 28 feet in a three-man playoff. In spite of missing the cut a few weeks ago at the Northern Trust Open, I am not too worried about Jordan’s recent form. He finished T17 last week, which is the same position he finished there last year the week prior to taking down the Valspar. He is probably the safest of the players listed above, but that safety comes with a heavy price tag of $12,800.

Cameron Tringale, at 7,000, is the cheapest player listed above. He is coming into this week in some poor form, only making three of his last four cuts. He is currently ranked 117^th on tour and 75^th in the field for Stroked Gained: Tee to Green.  That is considerably poor when considering that the other four players mentioned above all rank within the top 20 in the field for SG:T2G. I will give all five of the players listed above consideration this week, but if I am going to fade one, it will probably be Tringale.

Key Stats

This week, one of the things I am looking at is Strokes Gained: Tee to Green. My main focus will be there, but I will also be focusing a bit at Strokes Gained: Putting. Rather than hit you with a spreadsheet over 140 rows long, I will narrow this down to the top-five ranked players in SG:T2G for five different price ranges. I actually was trying to find a way to give you guys a sortable spreadsheet, but I can’t, so you won’t be getting that. If teasing cool things that will never come isn’t a sure-fire way to get the readers to keep reading, than I don’t know what is.

These past few articles I have used an average of the prior two years, but this week I decided to only use the current 2016 rankings. I am purposefully working with a smaller sample and I did this because the short season allows us to also take a peek at recent form. We usually consider small samples something to stay away from, but the young season allows for a quick way to get a look at some recent form. Some of these players have incredibly small samples due to playing overseas and I will point out some of the smaller samples if they come up in the top five. Your will also see “PGA Rank” which is where they currently rank on tour. I have included “Field Rank,” which is where they rank in the field. Although Stokes Gained: Tee to Green is the statistic that I will be focusing on, I also included some other information because I love you. The other statistics are also only representative of the players 2016 PGA Tour statistics.

$9,000 – $12,800

I included Louis Oosthuizen and Danny Willett, who are not currently in the PGA Rankings for Strokes Gained: Tee to Green. They have both only played in two PGA tour events this year and their numbers are representative of that. I thought it would be misleading to not include them, regardless of the small sample size due to their good play of late. Louis Oosthuizen finished T14 last week and prior to that he won the ISPS Handa Perth International in Australia. Danny Willett finished T3 in both of his PGA Tour events including last week’s WGC-Cadillac Championship. Willett comes in at $10,800 which is a world away from last week when he was priced at $8,000.

$8,000 – $8,900

$7,000 – $7,900

No real note here other than there is officially a Keegan Bradley sighting. As always, Keegan at your own risk.

$6,000 – $6,900

Vaughn Taylor has been inconsistent of late. His past four tournament results go as follows: CUT, 1, CUT, T20. Both of the current times that Vaughn has missed the cut of late, he has missed it at a score of E. He may appear a bit more inconsistent that he really is.

$5,000 – $5,900

Tread lightly here. Players are typically priced down here for a reason, and I would do some digging past their 2016 statistics before making any decisions to roster them.

There you have it. Keep in mind, I will not be using these numbers as my only measuring stick this weekend. I will go back and use last year’s rankings as well, but hopefully this opened your mind to perhaps diving a bit deeper into a player that you may have otherwise overlooked.

I have decided I am going to leave you guys with a link to the putt that won Jordan Spieth this tournament last year. I have never been on the PGA Tour, and I have never sunk a putt to win in a playoff. I did drain a pretty sick 3 at the gym today and I am imagining it feels something like that. Sometimes you just need to miss the first 10 to get yourself warmed up.

Good luck this weekend.