Valspar Championship: Furyk no stranger to taming Copperhead
Published:
Following Dustin Johnson’s comeback win at the WGC Cadillac Championship, the PGA Tour sticks with two themes for the next event on the schedule; Florida and a notoriously difficult course to master.
DJ won’t be searching for back-to-back wins in the Sunshine State after succesfully taming Doral’s Blue Monster, but plenty of other stellar names will be looking to take home the $1,026,000 winning share of the Valspar Championship purse.
First they must negotiate one of the toughest layouts on the circuit though and few have got better measure of the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort & Golf Club than 16/1 shot Jim Furyk.
Only two men stand above Furyk in the betting – Adam Scott at 12/1 and Jordan Spieth at 14s – and although both men are playing well, so is the veteran American, and neither can match his prowess at Copperhead.
While the Blue Monster rewards the bangers off the tee, the par 71 course is a battle of precision as it intertwines with Tampa’s lakes and ponds – serenely waiting to gobble up errant shots and pepper scorecards with bogeys or doubles.
Furyk won this event in 2010, chalking up four other top 20s in his last four starts at Copperhead.
Course form isn’t much use without assessing the here and now though, and luckily for would-be Furyk backers the former US Open champ comes up smelling of daisies.
The PGA Tour stalwart arrives off a hugely respectable tie for 12th at Doral given a scrappy third round knocked him off the scent, his third straight top 15 finish of the season.
Ranking 18th in GIR and number one in strokes gained tee-to-green, the case for Furyk’s Valspar tilt takes on an iron-like quality.
A little further down the pecking order is Kevin Na at a wondrous each-way price of 50/1.
Na’s current control of the golf ball was demonstrated with T9 at Doral, where he ranked 13th in strokes-gained putting, and he was a runner-up at the Valspar Championship just last year.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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