Xander Schauffele headlines a surprisingly strong field at the Valspar Championship, the last leg of the PGA Tour’s Florida swing that tees off Thursday in Palm Harbor, Fla.
Schauffele is the No. 3 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, one of seven top-20 players at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course for this non-signature event the week after The Players Championship.
But if you asked Schauffele himself, he might say he doesn’t feel like the third-best golfer in the world this year.
As he works back from a rib cartilage injury, Schauffele barely made the cut at The Players — keeping alive a streak of 59 consecutive cuts, the longest active on tour — and was highly critical of himself Friday, saying his game was “pretty gross” at the moment.
He told reporters Wednesday that he entered the Valspar seeking more reps.
“I didn’t think it was going to be this tricky,” Schauffele said. “Maybe I’m being a little impatient, it’s been two weeks of tournament golf for me, coming off of pretty much zero golf. … I have expectations and I think my team has expectations and just try to be professional through and through. But that includes shooting better scores.”
This field also includes Justin Thomas, Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, Sepp Straka of Austria, Irishman Shane Lowry and Norwegian star Viktor Hovland, who’s slipped to No. 19 in the world amid a tough start of his own in 2024. He opened with an 80 at The Players and has missed three cuts in a row.
These players might find comfort at a tournament where the winning scores have been double-digits under par for four straight years, and as low as 17 under when Sam Burns won back-to-back titles in 2021 and 2022.
Peter Malnati is the defending champion, having beaten Cameron Young by two strokes last year for his first PGA Tour win in more than eight years. Malnati said he began working with a new coach about three weeks ago.
“It’s kind of funny, looking back on the win last year, that was such an amazing peak for me,” Malnati said. “… You can’t help but feel like, ‘Hey, I’ve got something, something’s clicked, I figured something out.’ And then the game is so humbling. I’ve been in this rut and I was kind of approaching that definition of insanity where I was working really hard, I figured the stuff that I did to help me win must be the right stuff, so I just did it over and over and over and over and over again.
“So my form hasn’t been too good, but I’m really excited right now (about his new instructor).”
At 7,352 yards, the Copperhead Course is the longest par-71 course on the PGA Tour so far this season. It’s known for its “Snake Pit” at Nos. 16-18, a pair of difficult par-4s with a 200-yard par-3 in the middle.
–Field Level Media
