Viktor Hovland and Justin Thomas finished 1-2 at the Valspar Championship a year ago. They return to the Tampa Bay area in promising form following The Players Championship, ready to take on the Valspar again beginning Thursday in Palm Harbor, Fla.
Hovland bested Thomas by a single stroke on the final day. Thomas had made a late charge but bogeyed two of the final three holes at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course, known as “the Snake Pit.” Hovland, though, birdied two of those holes to swap positions with Thomas for the Norwegian’s only win of 2025.
Hovland described the course as very narrow off the tee.
“If the wind starts blowing and they tuck the pins on each side, and the greens get very firm, it’s very difficult to get close to the pins,” Hovland said. “… It really is a ball-striker’s course, but if you short side yourself and you end up missing greens, which everyone is bound to do, you have to rely on some intricate short game shots around the greens as well. So it really tests every single part of your game.”
Thomas was not dissuaded by his late stumble. He picked up his lone win of 2025 a month later at the RBC Heritage, and he’s encouraged by the fact that he has four top-10s at Innisbrook, including a T3 in 2022.
“It’s a tournament that works in my schedule every year. I love coming here,” Thomas said. “I think it’s one of the most underrated courses that we have, that we play. It’s very in front of you, and I think it’s not necessarily something that looks visually intimidating or difficult, but if you’re not sharp or if you’re not managing your game or emotions well, you can just make bogeys so fast. Yeah, it’s a place that I enjoy playing because I think it’s an old school kind of design.”
The strength of the course is matched by the strength of the field the week after The Players. Nine of the top 25 in the world rankings will tee it up, including major winners Xander Schauffele, J.J. Spaun and Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick.
While Thomas tied for eighth at TPC Sawgrass and Hovland tied for 13th, Fitzpatrick was leading for a short stretch on the back nine on Sunday after Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg went bogey-double bogey. But Fitzpatrick drove it out of position at the 18th and made bogey, allowing co-leader Cameron Young to win it with par.
“Disappointed, obviously,” Fitzpatrick said this week. “I felt like saying this morning I feel like I only hit two poor shots really the whole day. I didn’t really feel like my tee shot on the last was that bad, it just, it’s a little bit too straight, didn’t kind of get the wind off the right.”
A name to watch this week may be Jacob Bridgeman, the surprise leader in the FedEx Cup standings. Bridgeman, 26, broke through for his first win last month at the Genesis Invitational, but he hasn’t finished worse than T18 in seven starts this season.
Bridgeman tied for fifth at The Players, and with four steady rounds at the Valspar last year, he placed third behind only Hovland and Thomas.
–Field Level Media
