Cooperhead Key Fantasy Stats

Valspar Championship

March 9th – 12th, 2017

Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead Course)

Palm Harbor, FL

Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,340

Purse: 6.3 million

with $1,134,000 to the winner

Defending Champion:
Charl Schwartzel

by Sal Johnson

Founder, Chief Data Officer, GOLFstats

E-mail me at:
sal@golfstats.com

This is based on the most important stats for Cooperhead Course, based on data from last years Valspar Championship, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2017. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four catagories.
The scoring average of the field at Cooperhead in 2016 was 72.62, so with par being 71 that means the average score was a shot and a half over par, making Cooperhead the 6th hardest course to score on in 2016 (only five courses played harder). It’s also important to see how the weather played a factor, last year’s weather was pretty good as they had high winds blowing between 10 and 20 mph all four days. This year the weather will be good all four days, with a chance of showers late in the afternoon on Sunday.

In looking at the stats for Cooperhead last year, Greens hit, Driving Accuracy and putting from 4 to 8 feet are important. In stats from 2016 the Copperhead course was the 3rd hardest greens to hit and was 6th in proximity to hole With that are first stat will be strokes gained approach the green. Second up is fairways hit, the course ranked 13th on tour and 19th in driving distance. This is combined to figure out Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee to determine who saves the most shots with their drives on par 4s and 5s. Next up is putting and the Cooperhead course was the 7th rank course in putting average, meaning it was demanding to putt on the course which has large greens which are sloopy. It’s interesting to note that the course ranked 17th in putting from 10 to 15 feet, 3rd in putting from 15 to 20 feet, 1st in putting from 20 to 25 feet and 4th in putts over 25 feet. This is also an important element and one that goes in the Strokes Gained Putting stat. Last we have Par Breakers as the course was the 2nd hardest course on the PGA Tour to get birdies and eagles. This is one of the reasons the scoring average is high, players just can’t makes a lot of birdies or eagles.

So how did the winner Charl Schwartzel become victorious last year? In Strokes Gained approach the Green Schwartzel was 3rd and in strokes gained tee-to-green he was 4th. In driving accuracy he as T-65th and in driving distance, T29th. In Strokes gained approach-the-Green he was 3rd as he was T-10th in this category last year. Schwartzel was 12th in Strokes gained Putting while in Par Breakers he was 1st last year in this event.

*Strokes gained Approach-the-Green: This is a good indication on players that do the best at hitting the greens and getting it close to the hole to see who picks up the most strokes on the total shots into the green.

*Strokes Gained Off-the-Tee: Driving the ball is another important element and this stats calculates the number of strokes either gained or lost off the tee

Strokes Gained Putting: No matter how good your game is, you have to make these putts in order to win. This stat takes into effect everything that happens on the greens and calculates the number of shots either gained or lost.

*Par Breakers: The course is so demanding that making a lot of birdies and eagles aren’t possible. So players that are able to make a lot will do well on this course which ranked 6th in this stat on tour in 2016.

Below is the average of positions on stats from 2017 PGA Tour statistics:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.