PALM HARBOR – Happy St. Patrick’s Day as the PGA Tour tees-it-up at the Valspar Championship at Innesbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Florida. After a rain-soaked, thundershower-laced and one-day delayed PLAYERS, the PGA Tour is looking forward to sunny skies today.
Since Sunday, 10 players have withdrawn from the Valspar as of this morning (see list below).
This week’s Valspar Championship returns to its traditional March date and will wrap up the PGA Tour’s four-tournament Florida Swing after previously being contested in May, 2021. The three winners in Florida so far have included a first-time winner (Sepp Straka, The Honda Classic) and two players who entered the week in the Top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking and picked up their second wins of the season (Scottie Scheffler/Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and Cameron Smith/The PLAYERS Championship).
Five of the Top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking are scheduled to compete in the Valspar Championship, the most for the tournament since 2015 (5). This is the seventh event this season with at least five of the Top 10 players and second consecutive. No. 2 Collin Morikawa, No. 3 Viktor Hovland, No. 8 Justin Thomas, No. 9 Xander Schauffele, and rounding it out, No. 10 Dustin Johnson.
There have been 11 Holes-in-One at the Valspar.
Among all the players in the field this weekend, only Denny McCarthy and Sam Ryder have made the cut in the three prior Florida Swing events. Meanwhile, Shane Lowry has pocketed the most FedEx Cup points during the three Florida events with 357. Viktor Hovland registered 298 points.
The 2020 FedEx Cup champion Dustin Johnson is making his 300th career start on the Tour this week. In his first 299 starts, Johnson collected 24 wins (8.0%), and 113 Top-10s (37.8%). DJ has won on Tour in each of the last 14 seasons (2008 through 2020-21), which is tied with Tiger Woods for the third-longest streak to start a career.