Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the Valspar Championship
2016 Valspar Championship Preview
BOOM! We advised our premium members last week to opt for Adam Scott and Bubba Watson over the ‘Big 3’ of McIlory, Fowler, and Spieth and that advice paid off big time! More to come with last week’s triumph in a moment, but first let’s get you ready for the Valspar Championship.
Although he hasn’t shown any dominance since his first 2016 win at Kapalua back in January, this week Spieth will return to the place that began his 2015 ‘career year’ – a run that would eventually see five total wins including two majors. If Spieth can return to his previous form he will undoubtedly be a force to recon with here at Copperhead as Jordan recorded a T7 here in 2013 before returning with a win in 2015.
The other big players featured in this week’s field are Patrick Reed and Henrik Stenson. Stenson will make a return trip to Innisbrook after finishing one shot out of last year’s playoff in his tournament debut. Believe it or not, Henrik is still seeking his first U.S. victory since winning the 2013 FedExCup at East Lake.
Last Week’s Fantasy Results
If you took our fantasy advice last week your wallet is undoubtedly a little fatter this morning.
BOOM! Our #fantasygolf picks just went 1-2-3 at the #WGCCadillac. pic.twitter.com/Eh8HhIQhWm
— Golficity (@Golficity) March 6, 2016
In case you missed it, this is how we set our Premium Members up with our Horse Picks last week:
‘We’re going to opt for a new strategy this week and pick two horses instead of one. During these smaller events, you can get premier favorites for lower prices, allowing you to build a stellar roster from top to bottom. The OWGR top-4 are all amazing golfers and any could win this event, but the stats are pointing towards Bubba Watson this week. Former World No. 1 Adam Scott has also proven himself to be the real deal once again this season and his train looks to only be gaining momentum.’
With that said, we sat Fowler, Spieth, McIlroy, and Day and opted instead to take Scott and Watson as our top picks. Sprinkle in our low-tier pick Danny Willett and we ended up cashing in big time this week. If you haven’t seen the leaderboard, this is how things ended up at Trump Doral:
So far this season we have successfully picked seven winners in the sixteen events played which almost putts us at an unmatched 50% in picking winners year-to-date. We also offered our Premium Members some sample DraftKings rosters and one roster in particular earned a ton of fantasy points which easily banked players some serious cash.
Willett was a solid pickup last week as well and we highlighted him as someone you need to have on your roster both in our picks segment and our Tuesday Fantasy Sleeper Report. With the big 1-2-3 punch last week we are back above $1 million in weekly PGA TOUR purse earnings (which means our 7 picks for the week earned over $1 million combined for that event).
It’s also worth noting that our Salary Cap Sleeper Pick Smylie Kaufman also came through big-time finishing with a solid T8 against his low $6,500 price tag last week.
Looks like we are now heating up again heading into the most exciting time of the season and right before the big $4 million Masters event on DraftKings.
The 2016 Valspar Championship Field
There’s no doubt that the top priced player in salary cap this week will be World No. 1 Jordan Spieth as he makes his first title defense of 2016 (one of five this year). He’ll be going up against a field not as rich as last week’s WGC, but the 2016 Valspar is still set to contain some heavy hitters. In all, Spieth will be joined by two other players in the OWGR Top 10 and seven out of the Top 20.
Among those names are the No. 6 ranked player Henrik Stenson—who missed out by one stroke in last year’s playoff—and No. 10 Patrick Reed who lost to Spieth in that same playoff. Stenson did not show much dominance at Doral, and Reed has cooled off dramatically since his hot start in January. Stay tuned below to see if we even consider those two guys in our fantasy selections this week.
We’re going to have to dig deep this week to analyze the field since a large majority of players in this event are low-tier and unpopular names to most PGA fans. With Spieth as the clear favorite, you don’t necessarily need to break the bank on him (utilizing a similar strategy as last week), but let’s see what are stats are pointing at this week before jumping to that conclusion.
For more here’s the full field listing from PGATOUR.com for the Valspar Championship.
This Week’s Course Overview
The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort measures in at 7,340 yards and plays as a par 71. The course has an nontraditional Florida feel with many different elevation changes throughout a rolling, tree-lined track which has been known to give players quite a bit of trouble.
This course contains double doglegs on two par-5s which really puts a premium on getting home in two. The closing three holes are known to most as the “Snake Pit” which (similar to The Bear Trap) features two brutal par-4s with a tough 215-yard par-3 sandwiched in between.
We’ll cover more course details in depth and how it pertains to our fantasy picks and key fantasy statistics in our Fantasy Notes section below.
A photo posted by Joe Hooks (@joe.hooks) on
Jan 5, 2016 at 3:33pm PST
Weather Forecast for Palm Harbor, FL
You can expect decent weather for Rounds 1 and 2 in Palm Harbor this week but wind will play a crucial factor throughout most of the event.
Round 3 is calling for thunderstorms with winds as high as 18 mph. Barring no weather setbacks on Saturday, the final round looks to be the best day of the four.
Last Year’s Results from the Valspar Championship
Copperhead was where the phenomenal run to No. 1 in the World all began for Jordan Spieth. The 22-year old made two clutch par putts to earn his way into a playoff with Patrick Reed and Sean O’Hair and he won it all with an incredible 30-foot birdie on the third extra hole.
In the end Jordan finished with a 2-under 69 in regulation and the turning point was his amazing wedge shot on 17 from a terrible lie which helped him save par before moving on to the 12-footer on 18 he salvaged after missing the green from his shot out of the fairway bunker.
Here’s a recap of Spieth triumph at Innisbrook last year.
This Week’s Broadcast Schedule
Television Broadcasts
Thursday (Mar 10, 2016) – Friday (Mar 11, 2016) 3 pm – 6 pm (Golf Channel)
Saturday (Mar 10, 2016) 12 pm – 3:00 pm EST (Golf Channel), 3 pm – 6 pm EST (CBS)
Sunday (Mar 11, 2016): 12 pm – 3:00 pm EST (Golf Channel), 3 pm – 6 pm EST (CBS)
PGA TOUR LIVE
Thursday (Mar 3, 2016)) – Friday (Mar 4, 2016)): 8 am – 3 pm EST (Featured Groups), 3 pm – 6pm (Featured Holes)
Download the iOS app here to view on mobile devices.
Mobile Broadcasts
Simultaneous coverage on the Golf Live Extra App for iOS and Android.
Where to Play Fantasy Golf for the Valspar Championship this Week
As we do every week, we’ve searched all the major fantasy sites to find you the best contests this week. Here are a few of our favorites:
No Halftime: We’re hoping a lot of you checked out No Halftime last week, the new player vs. player fantasy sports game that’s not only simple, but a lot of fun to play. If you haven’t checked them out yet, be sure to get in there and create or accept a challenge for this week’s event. We’ll give you some solid heads-up match-ups in this week’s picks to help you get the most bang for your buck. Simply find a player vs. player contest and pick your wager ($5 to $100 per contest) and you’ll be off and running. Remember to use the coupon code GOLF when you sign up to get a $10 deposit bonus…its like playing with free money!
DraftKings: DK has two games we like this week, one is a qualifier for the big event in April and the other is weekly event with a nice kicker to 1st place.
PGA $4M Fantasy Golf Millionaire SUPERSatellite: This game cost only $3 bucks to enter and the field is less than 10,000 players. They will be rewarding 1250 players with a $20 entry to the big game which kicks off the week of April 4th, 2016.
PGA $300K FAIRWAY [$50K TO 1ST!]: If you like the higher cost entry games, this one has a solid payout structure. A $27 entry gets you a shot at the $50k first prize and even 10th place will put a cool grand in your pocket. There is just over 12,000 players in this contest and payouts will run up to 2,585th place.
There are countless other fantasy leagues (and league structures) out there so remember that our Premium Members can use our Ask our Fantasy Golf Experts service for one-on-one help and specific answers to your fantasy golf contest questions.
This Week’s Fantasy Notes for the Valspar Championship
Let’s state the obvious first: Copperhead is a tough course and it presents a lot of challenges, especially with rain in the forecast. Last year this track posted 0.86 strokes over par and your winner (Jordan Spieth) was only ranked 51st in fairways hit and 32nd in GIR for the week. This is why we like scrambling and birdie conversions as our key areas of statistical focus this week. It’s worth noting that Jordan also finished the week ranked T1 in fewest putts and lead in Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green.
The Snake Pit will definitely mess up some scorecards, but probably not as bad as Bowditch last week (ouch). The course had a facelift and new grass was put into play—believe us, even these little course makeovers can make a huge difference to any past success. The one thing that remains the same here is the daunting par-5s and we’ll be factoring par 5 scoring into our picks this week as well. If you want to dig deeper you can get a gauge of a player’s power stats by simply sorting the ‘Power’ column in our Weekly Fantasy Stats.
There are plenty of solid sleeper picks at great prices in the field this week and we’re liking the idea of running with one roster with a big dollar horse and one without. We’ll jump to a few examples in our sample DraftKings rosters below.
Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Valspar Championship
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Last Week’s Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the WGC-Cadillac
Adam Scott (Golficity Odds 14/1): WINNER ($1,620,000)
Bubba Watson (Golficity Odds 14/1) 2nd ($1,018,000)
J.B. Holmes (Golficity Odds 28/1): 59th ($51,000)
Justin Thomas (Golficity Odds 38/1): T35 ($72,500)
Danny Willett (Golficity Odds 46/1): T3 ($483,000)
Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the WGC-Cadillac
Kevin Na (Golficity Odds 75/1): T35 ($72,500)
Salary Cap League Sleeper Pick/Odds to Win the WGC-Cadillac
Smylie Kaufman (Golficity Odds 80/1): T8 ($197,500)
Fantasy Golf Predictions YTD (2015-2016)
Tourneys Played '15 -'16
0
112 Picks
Season Earnings
$0
$1092986 weekly average
Total Top 3s
16 out of 112 picks
Total Top 10s
27 out of 112 picks
Total Winners Picked
7 out of 16 events
Total Sleeper Report Winners Picked
1 out of 16 events
Total Runners-Up Picked
4 out of 16 events
Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)
79 out of 112 picks
Total Major Winners Picked (TBD)
0 out of 0 events
Remember to visit the The Clubhouse and our private Facebook group to discuss this week’s picks for the 2016 Valspar Championship with other Premium Members.
Cover Photo via Instagram