The “Snake Pit” awaits players at this week’s Valspar Championship, and with wicked winds expected Rounds 1-2 conditions will be a battle as well. Whoever can outlast the course and mother nature will be in prime position to go win over the weekend. 

Here in this preview we’ll get you ready with a stat breakdown of the Innisbrook Copperhead Course as well as a Round 1 game plan for all of your prop exposure. Let’s dive in!

2025 Free Play Record:

Before we go through the details for the Copperhead course, I want to recap how our results have looked to start 2025.

Last Week: Players

Aldrich Potgieter Over 71.5 Strokes✔️

Joel Dahmen Over 3.5 BOB❌

Hit rate: 15-7 year-to-date (68.2% hit rate)

Unfortunately we’ve gone 1-1 the last two weeks and Joel just couldn’t get the putter working Thursday. We’re still hitting at nearly a 70% clip on the year and are into the profit .44 units as well. Let’s go 2-0 this time around!

Tournament details:

Field size –  156

Cut – Top 65 and ties

Returning Champ – Malnati (-12)

Past Champs – T. Moore, S. Burns (x2), P. Casey (x2), A. Hadwin, C. Schwartzel

Purse – $8.7 million

Course Details:

Innisbrook Resort Copperhead Course

Par – 71

Length – 7,352 yards

Green type –  TifEagle bermudagrass / Poa trivialis overseed 

Designer – Larry Packard (1971)

# of Bunkers – 74

# of holes w/ water –  9

Rough – 3.75” Ryegrass Overseed

Stat Averages from the last 3 years (powered by Betthenumber’s course page)

Below are the averages from the last 3 years at the Copperhead course

2024 Prop Based averages:

If we narrow down the stat averages to just last year, and give the raw numbers so we can make them actionable prop wise, here’s what we get!

Approach distribution:

The approach distribution this week skews a little bit less from 50-125 and more form 125-175 and 175-225. There will be quite a few mid to long irons and a lack of wedges into holes.

How to model at the 2025 Valspar Championship

Betthenumber’s model for this week has 7 main “key stats” incorporated to rank players and their fit for this week. Below is the top 5 in the BTN model as well as a description of the key stats they are using to find values this week.

SG OTT: Last 40 Rounds

• Having a balanced off the tee game is crucial around the Copperhead course with its deep rough and length

Distance from Edge of Fairway

• Distance from edge of the fairway gives us a measure of how “bad” a player’s miss is off the tee, and with the graduated rough and tree lined holes the bigger misses will be penalized more this week

SG APP: Last 40 Rounds

• Approach play is always the biggest part of my modeling on tour, and this week is no exception with the BTN model

ARG: Overseed (L 24)

• With the windy conditions in play, ARG play is going to come into play this week. Using overseed stat will give us an idea of who is comfortable on this sort of grass ARG

SG PUTT: Overseed

• Just like with ARG play, finding players comfortable putting on overseed is helpful

APP: 150-200

• The 150-200 yard range is utilized more than usual at this course, and honing in on those shots is helpful iron wise

PUTT: 4-10 ft

• The 4-10 foot range is where players can typically separate themselves from the field at Innisbrook

Round 1 Game Plan

Now that we’ve got the course and modeling down, let’s turn to the prop side and try to find some value for Round 1. First, let’s check the weather and see what sort of conditions players will be facing Thursday

Thursday’s weather forecast:

In short, the weather looks absolutely dreadful for Round 1. The early guys might get slightly calmer conditions for the first 2.5-3 hours of play, but by 11am local the wind will be kicking out there and the PM guys could be in for a rough ride. The AM guys might play around an even par average with the soft course (they got 3 inches of rain Sunday), but the PM wave should play over par in the 0.5-1 stroke over range at the very best.

Round 1 Free Play

Though there’s been a lot of talk about the carnage, my play for tomorrow is actually two positive stance plays that go off early and should avoid the worst of conditions. And with the overall conditions we are getting soft prices on both in my opinion. This pays 2.75x with the correlation between these two props.

Michael Kim Under 71.5 Strokes

• Kim has one of the earliest tee times this week, going off at 7:40am est, and with him needing to shoot even par or better to cover is a spot I’ll mix in. Winds won’t be kicking up fully until about 10:30-11am est if forecasts are accurate, and if so Kim will have most of his round completed by that time. With course reports saying that its soft with the 3 inches of rain they got Sunday I think we could see some low scores early tomorrow. Michael has also made the cut here the last few years and that was when his form wasn’t nearly as strong as it is now.

Sam Burns Over 3.5 Birdies or Better

• Burns is a multiple time champion around this course and even in a missed cut here last year made 5+ birdies both days. He has an 8:24am est tee time so he’ll also get a good amount of his round in before the winds become an issue, and even after they do he’ll have some par 5s and shorter par 4s to try and pick off an extra birdie or two down the finishing stretch. I am projecting for around a 3.5 BOB average for the morning guys with the winds not being as much of a factor, and an elite tier course history guy like Burns who also rated out as a top 5 BOB% player on tour last year is a solid over spot

That’s all for this week’s Valspar. Best of luck, and let’s have a week!

On top of the free articles every week, make sure to tune into my YT channel – GSLUKEDFS, for all of the shows throughout the weekend! (Rounds 2-4)