Xander Schauffele headings A surprisingly strong field at Valspar Championship, the last part of PGA Tours Florida swing that tees of Thursday in Palm Harbor, FLA.
Schauffele is the No. 3 player in the official World Golfrance, one of seven top-20 players on Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course for this non-signature event the week after Players Championship.
But if you asked Schauffele himself, he can say that he does not feel like the third best golfer in the world this year.
When he works back from a rib cartilage injury, Schauffele barely made the average of the players – keeping a row of 59 cuts in a row, the longest active on the tour – and was very critical of himself on Friday, and said his game was “quite rough” at the moment.
He told reporters on Wednesday that he went into rolling pairs and searched more reps.
“I didn’t think it would be so tricky,” Schauffele said. “Maybe I’m a little impatient, it has been two weeks of tournament golf for me, which has come from quite a lot of zero golf. … I have expectations and I think my team has expectations and just trying to be professional through and it includes shooting better points.”
This field also includes Justin Thomas, Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, Sepp Straka from Austria, Irishman Shane Lowry and Norwegian star Viktor Hovland, who has slipped to No. 19 in the world in the middle of a tough start on 2024. He opened with an 80 on the players and has missed three cuts in one line.
These players can find comfort at a tournament where the winning points have been double-digit during par for four straight years, and as low as 17 during when Sam Burns won back-to-back titles 2021 and 2022.
Peter Malnati is the defending champion, after beating Cameron Young with two strokes last year for his first PGA Tour victory in more than eight years. Malnati said he started working with a new coach about three weeks ago.
“It’s a little fun and looked back at the victory last year, it was such a fantastic top for me,” Malnati said. “… you can’t help but feel like,” Hi, I have something, something clicked, I thought about something. “And then the game is so humble.
“So my form has not been too good, but I’m really excited right now (about his new instructor).”
At 7,352 meters, the Copperhead course is the longest PAR-71 course on the PGA tour to date this season. It is known for its “Snake Pit” at No. 16-18, a pair of difficult pair-4s with a 200-Yard PAR-3 in the middle.
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