Recapping the PLAYERS.  I said I’d venture to use a big name, and while Rory did pretty well, some of the other big names definitely did not.

Scottie Scheffler T20
Rory McIlroy WINNER
Collin Morikawa T9
Xander Schauffele 72
Tommy Fleetwood  T14
Ludvig Åberg CUT

It’s a tough event with a lot of volatility again this week, but a much smaller purse.  The Valspar is tied for 27th in the purse size rankings with an $8.7 million pot and $1.566 million to the winner.  With lots of water and ways to eject, finding your guy will be another tough one, but as always, we’ll try.  It’s a slightly better field than I expected with some guys looking to get some more golf in before the Masters, and as always, we’ll look at who’s been making the cut.

 

Cutmakers

I sorted out any rounds where it has been easy to gain strokes off the tee and looked at a two-year sample of it.  Probably take Viktor Hovland with a big grain of salt, as he’s still trying to figure stuff out.  Still a ton of the favorites here, as usual, but Beau Hossler is an interesting case.  He’s losing strokes on approach over this sample but driving and putting well enough to be in the top twenty 31% of the time.

 

Ball Strikers

Another one where I added a filter to the page to help get a look at similar rounds.  This is the past two years on “Less than Driver” courses, sorted by Strokes Gained: Ball Striking.  Now, we’re getting some names further down the board.  Xander, Conners, Shane, and Sepp still make the leaderboard here, but the suddenly not-terrible Joel Dahmen does too.  Dahmen’s putting is still hurting him, but he’s made the cut in three straight and has a couple top tens this year (one was in Mexico, not a great comp to Innisbrook to be fair).

Par 3 Golf

Finally, this one was via Noonan on the livestream.  With five par 3s and tough scoring conditions, I looked at how this field has done over the the past couple of years on Par 3s when I sorted out rounds that were “easy” scoring on the par 3s.  All five are fairly long and will create some issues even if the wind doesn’t pick up that much.  Vince Whaley and Ryo Hiatsune are on the leaderboard with the big boys!  Even playing injured for some time, Zalatoris also finds himself in a familiar spot.

Valspar One and Done Suggestions

With the winds looking like there will be a definite AM/PM advantage, I guess for now I would look to guys with early tee times on Thursday.  This can always switch up, as weather is unpredictable, but as of right now, the winds Thursday afternoon and Friday morning look rough and I won’t be getting cute with it.

Sepp Straka
Tom Kim
Sam Burns
Michael Kim
wildcard: Rico Hoey

Be sure to check out Ron’s free course preview and to check out more stats at the Rabbit Hole