I don’t think I’m the only one that’s glad last week is over. The Players Championship experienced some wild weather, a first round over 55 hours long, multiple delays, and A LOT of water balls. One of my outright winners, Matsuyama, withdrew after the tournament started. The other, Daniel Berger, drew the short straw and had to play his second round in the crazy winds, leading to a 75 after posting 67-70-70 on the other three days. Collin Morikawa missed the cut after also getting buried by the weather. Corey Conners played well, but his T-26 was two shots off cashing a Top-10 pick. Finally, I actually hit a bet! Shane Lowry T-20 cashed as he finished T-13. I told you he plays well in bad weather!
Now for this week. Driving Accuracy will be key at Innisbrook this week, as the course sports the 5th narrowest fairways on Tour. Ball striking is also going to be important as there are 12 dog legs on this course to go along with a lot of tight, tree lined areas. The Par 3s are all over 195yds and we go back to Poa greens after a stretch of Bermuda. Innisbrook is the 5th toughest course on Tour with scoring relative to par of +0.81.
The GIR% here is 31.3% lower than the Tour average, and although scrambling is slightly easier, the birdie or better percent is 39.1% lower and the bogey avoidance is lower. That means less birdies and more bogeys - so bogey avoidance will be key this week.
Let’s look at the 5 key stats for this week and the guys in the Top 10 of each category entering this week at the Valspar Championship:
Strokes Gained: Off The Tee
Rahm, McIlroy, Mitchell, Garcia, Young, Steele, Hovland, List, Conners, Buckley
Ball Striking
Rahm, Hovland, Morikawa, Conners, Burns, Matsuyama, Oosthuizen, Im, Power, Glover, Henley
Strokes Gained: Approach
Henley, Zalatoris, Hovland, Casey, Hoge, Smith, Donald, Knox, Thomas, C. Kim
GIR% 175-200yds
McGreevey, Knox, English, Straka, Donald, Fowler, Reeves, Glover, Barjon, Conners, Simpson
Bogey Avoidance
Berger, Thomas, Im, English, Morikawa, Cantlay, Matsuyama, Burns, Schauffele, C. Smith
Outright:
Collin Morikawa +1200 - He’s the best iron player on tour. He missed the cut last week, so he should be looking to rebound this week. He’s in the Top 15 for all of the above stats except for GIR% 175-200yds where he sits 31st.
Russel Knox +6800 - He ranks 44th or higher in all 5 stats above. His style fits this course nicely, has finished 26th of better here in the last 3 years and just put together a nice T6 last week at the Players.
Top 10:
Abraham Ancer +350 - His SG: APP leaves some to be desired, but he ranks 56th or better in all four other stats. He has played here twice in the past and finished 16th and 5th in those.
Webb Simpson +600 - He has 3 Top 10s at Innisbrook in 10 events. He hasn’t played here since 2019, but he finished 8th in 2018.
Top 20:
Luke Donald +650 - He won here in 2012 and finished 9th in 2019. He’s one of the worst on Tour in SG:OTT, average in Ball Striking, but Top 10 in GIR% and SG:APP.