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Here's how to spend a weekend at Innisbrook (and play Copperhead!) for under $900

Jessica Marksbury — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 15:43:48 +0000

No matter where you live, late October is a time when any destination in Florida just sounds nice. Balmy, 70-degree temperatures are the norm through December in Palm Harbor, along the Sunshine State’s west coast.

Another reason to visit Palm Harbor? The chance to play the famous Copperhead Course, of course! Not only does it host the PGA Tour every year for the Valspar Championship, it’s also No. 72 on GOLF’s most recent ranking of the Top 100 Courses You Can Play.

And if you need even more incentive, the course is part of Innisbrook, A Salamander Resort, which was recently named one of GOLF’s Top 100 Resorts in North America. The best part? You can stay and play over a whole weekend for under $900. Here’s how.

AIRFARE: $180

Your best bet when arriving by air is the Tampa airport (TPA), which is about 20 miles from Innisbrook. From the northeast and Chicago, direct flights for a long weekend in November range from $98 to $207 round-trip, while a flight from a west coast airport like LAX will cost $241 (prices via Kayak) — but you won’t get a direct from LA, unfortunately.

TOTAL AIRFARE: ~$180

Travel

Here’s how you can play 4 Top 100 courses in one weekend trip for less than $1,500

GROUND TRANSPORTATION: $35

I usually recommend renting a car, but since all of your weekend activity will be centralized at Innisbrook (golf, dining, etc.), I think Uber or Lyft makes strategic sense here, since all you need is a ride to and from the airport. That will only set you back about $35-$40 each way — a bargain! And it will be even less if you travel with buddies and split an XL vehicle four ways.

TOTAL SPEND: $180 + $35 = $215

Innisbrook's Copperhead course annually hosts the PGA Tour's Valspar Championship.

Bill Hornstein

LODGING AND GREEN FEES: $485.90 (TWO NIGHTS AND TWO ROUNDS)

Innisbrook is currently offering a cool stay-and-play golf package: the Classic Golf Package. For the weekend I booked in November, $430/night gets you and your guest lodging, 18 holes of golf (even at Copperhead, pending tee time availability), breakfast in any clubhouse, unlimited use of practice facilities and the fitness center, and club storage.

And remember, there are three other courses on property to choose from, after you play Copperhead.

The total cost for a two-night stay with the package, inclusive of taxes and fees, is $971.80, which comes out to only $485.90 per person. A smokin’ deal!

TOTAL SPEND: $215 + $485.90 = $700.90

An aerial view of Innisbrook's South Course.

Bill Hornstein

DINING: $180

Since breakfast is covered by your Innisbrook package, all you have to worry about is lunch and dinner for two days — which means you have some serious room to splurge! Try this breakdown:

Day 1 lunch: $30

Day 1 dinner: $60

Day 2 lunch: $30

Day 2 dinner: $60

Total dining: $180

TOTAL SPEND: $700.90 + $180 = $880.90

And there you have it! A weekend of golf, food and fun at Innisbrook for less than $900 per person! Ready to book? Happy travels!

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Toughest Stretches On Tour

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 22:36:50 +0000

Wherever these three-hole stretches are found on the scorecard, they make life extremely hard for the best players in the world.

The post Toughest Stretches On Tour appeared first on Golf.

Tournament History: Valspar Championship

Tue, 19 Mar 2019 18:09:20 +0000

The Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort, home to the Valspar Championship, features a unique layout that has four par 3s on the scorecard.

The post Tournament History: Valspar Championship appeared first on Golf.

Four things to know about the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Golf Club

Pat Ralph — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 14:02:27 +0000

The Florida swing of the PGA Tour wraps up this week with its fourth and final event, as the Valspar Championship gets underway on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort & Golf Club in Palm Harbor, Florida. Located just outside of Tampa, the Copperhead Course has played host to the Valspar Championship since the event’s inception on Tour in 2000. While Innisbrook has four courses available to golfers, the Copperhead Course is the lone one used for the Valspar Championship. Here’s everything that you need to know about this week’s course.

The origin of the course: While Innisbrook Resort & Golf Club was built in 1970, the Copperhead Course would not come about until 1974. It was the second of four courses to be built at Innisbrook, as the Island Course was first constructed in 1970. Copperhead was originally a 27-hole track before nine of the holes were used for the development of the Highlands North Course, the third course to be built at Innisbrook. The fourth and final course to be built was the Highlands South Course. Copperhead rated as the sixth-most difficult course on the PGA Tour in 2018.

The design of the course: Designed by Larry Packard, the 18-hole par-71 Copperhead Course features five tee boxes for golfers to choose from and runs nearly 7,300 yards during the Valspar Championship. Both the fairways and greens at Copperhead are made from Bermuda grass. Like most other courses in the Sunshine State, Copperhead seeks to bring the natural landscape into play. The fairways are lined with pine trees and the course is described as having a rolling terrain. The course also has no shortage of lakes and ponds that come into play as water hazards.

The Copperhead Course is one of the most difficult tracks to play on the PGA Tour.

Easiest hole: The par-5 11th hole, nicknamed “O’s Alley”, is a long and narrow track that runs 575 yards. Its scoring average at 4.668 is the lowest of any of the par-5’s on the Copperhead Course. The smallest percentage of bogeys on the course occur at this hole (six percent), as it accumulated only 28 bogeys last year. It’s also the only hole on the course where there wasn’t a single double bogey or worse in 2018. The key to this hole is the frontside bunker, which will determine whether or not one can make it to the green in two shots.

Most difficult hole: Nicknamed “The Moccasin”, the intimidating par-4 16th hole runs 475 yards. Its scoring average at 4.300 is the highest of any of the par-4’s, and it is the longest par-4 on the Copperhead Course. In addition, the fewest number of birdies and pars on any of the par-4 holes occur at the 16th tee. On the other hand, the 16th hole had the most double bogeys or worse on the Copperhead Course in 2018. With water stretching the entire right side of the fairway, the 16th hole was rated as one of the 30 toughest holes and 20 most difficult par-4’s on Tour last year. The key to this hole is off the tee, as a well-hit driver will set one up with a long second shot to the wide green.

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WATCH: Tiger Woods chips in for birdie on No. 9 at Valspar Championship

Kiley Bense — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 16:48:00 +0000

Tiger Woods picked up his third birdie of the day on the ninth hole at Innisbrook, sending fans into a frenzy of Tiger-mania. Woods chipped in from 30 feet on No. 9 after he also birdied No. 3 and No. 5. Predictably, the internet went wild.

Woods is currently three shots behind leader Corey Conners, a 26-year-old Canadian who’s so far more than kept his cool despite the intense pressure of knowing that Tiger Woods is at his heels.

Watch footage below:

Sound for @TigerWoods‘ chip-in on No. 9. pic.twitter.com/Mj6mIHiVii

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 10, 2018

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When to watch Tiger Woods: Valspar Championship Round 4 tee times and TV schedule

GOLF WIRE — Sat, 10 Mar 2018 09:00:00 +0000

Tiger Woods is doing more than contending at the Valspar Championship. Woods shot 67 on Saturday and is just one stroke off the lead heading into Sunday’s final round at Innisbrook. He tees off at 1:50 p.m. alongside Brandt Snedeker in the penultimate group. Notable tee times and the TV schedule is below.

What: Valspar Championship
Where: Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead Course), Palm Harbor, Fla.
When: Thursday-Sunday, March 8-11
Defending champion: Adam Hadwin (14 under, 270)

TV Schedule (ET)

Sunday: 1-3 p.m. (Golf Channel); 3-6 p.m. (NBC)

Purse ($6.5 million)

1st: $1.17 million

Notable Tee Times (Round 4)

2 p.m. — Justin Rose, Corey Conners
1:50 p.m. — Brandt Snedeker, Tiger Woods
1:40 p.m. — Sam Burns, Patrick Reed
1:30 p.m. — Rory Sabbatini, Tyrone Van Aswegen
1:20 p.m. — Ryan Palmer, Kelly Kraft
1:10 p.m. — Adam Scott, Russell Knox
1 p.m. — Branden Grace, Trey Mullinax
12:50 p.m. — Louis Oosthuizen, Webb Simpson

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Tiger Takes Tampa: Woods has put a charge into Innisbrook and the tournament is still two days away

Dylan Dethier — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 22:30:00 +0000

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Tuesdays are relatively quiet on Tour. Tucked safely between travel Monday and Pro-Am Wednesday, they’re often the best and calmest time to practice, before any shot that counts has been struck. Urgency is invisible this time of week.

At the Honda Classic, Tiger Woods skipped Tuesday altogether, figuring a Wednesday refresher would suffice. Many fans in attendance at Tuesday’s Valspar Championship practice round expected this week might be the same.

Just a week ago, Tampa-area fans would have been surprised to hear that Woods would be in attendance at all. The Honda Classic’s Palm Beach Gardens home puts it in the Hamptons of Florida, the moneyed retreat of Tour stars and New York elite. By contrast, the Valspar Championship is just across the state but a world away, in Florida’s earnest west coast. Innisbrook is pure, like all Tour courses, and the Valspar has produced memorable winners, most notably Jordan Spieth in 2015. But this is never a stop that has attracted golf’s elite.

Tuesday was a sunny day in the neighborhood at Innisbrook, a gated community with four courses, three of which will be open to public play this weekend. Just down the street from the PGA Tour’s setup, an older man hit range balls with his granddaughters. Signs with previous winners — Hadwin, Schwartzel, Spieth, Senden — flanked the streets, but the exciting commitments of 2018 (Rory! Sergio! Adam Scott! And of course, Tiger Woods) weren’t trumpeted about.

There were top pros abound in the practice area. Defending champion Adam Hadwin was messing around near the chipping green, working on flop shots from downhill lies in the rough. He shanked one that scampered across the green and past the unsuspecting ankles of another caddie. He grinned. “Sorry,” Hadwin called over. “Didn’t even see you there — that could have been dangerous.”

The caddie didn’t care; on Tuesdays, why bother?

But then word spread: Tiger was on property, touching down for a Tuesday afternoon jaunt ’round the front nine. All of a sudden, elbow room at the edge of the chipping green got tight, only exacerbated by Spieth’s presence. The tenor of the crowd changed: Applause. Murmurs. Shrieks, even.

After his warmup, Woods teed it up with a group of the game’s elder statesmen: He and Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk took on Davis Love III and Steve Stricker. Spectators from across the course seemed to sense his presence and were drawn to it like bugs to light; by the group’s third hole some 80 percent of the fans on property were in tow. Woods didn’t seem to remember all that much about the course — understandable after 22 years away — and relied on LaCava and his yardage book with overall success.

Fun thing about Tiger being the youngest in the group is that he hits it by everyone — with 2 iron pic.twitter.com/70XN4C8ymg

— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) March 6, 2018

“Where am I supposed to go?” he asked LaCava on the par-5 5th. “None of my numbers really fit here.” He settled on driver, which LaCava told him to hit down the left. Woods hit it down the right.

The group enjoyed each other’s company, and although none seemed overly invested in the results of the match, Woods in particular was engaged in every shot. He played fairly well, birdieing the first and mixing in seven pars along with one bogey the rest of the front side, providing few tangible moments to thrill the crowd but doing so anyway, without even trying.

“Thanks for coming to Tampa, Tiger!” one woman yelled, and others around her echoed the sentiment.

As tournament director Tracy West pointed out last week, this isn’t the Phoenix Open, and these fans wouldn’t have earned a single Justin Thomas finger-wag. They were appreciative and excited, genuinely so, eager for the Tiger Show to have touched down at this event for the first time. There were no screams, because this was a mellow crowd trying to play it cool, and because it was Tuesday, and because they appeared awed by the spectacle.

Woods’s presence may be closer to a vacuum than a magnet. As the day’s featured pairing approached the 8th green, a twosome looked on from the nearby 11th tee: Adam Scott and Justin Rose. As Furyk lined up a putt, Rose seemed to smile at the size of the gallery; several hundred were already battling for position on the next tee. Scott hit driver down the middle and the pair strode away, two of the world’s most famous golfers. Not a single fan was on the hole.

Rose shot me a glance as he walked away; most Tour players still notice when they’re being watched. Tiger assumes it at all times. He messed around greenside sampling a mix of low runners and high, soft flops on the firm surfaces.

“Best I’ve seen the course in years,” one spectator, an Innisbrook member, told his friend. “The greens especially. Thank God we got ’em ready for him.”

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The Valspar finish has bite: A closer look at the diabolical 'Snake Pit'

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 14:30:00 +0000

The PGA Tour is replete with stretches of holes that brutalize even the best in the game. Many of these terror-filled trios sport colorful nicknames. One of the most memorable is the “Snake Pit,” the closing three holes at Innisbrook’s Copperhead course, home to the Valspar Championship. Year after year, the Snake Pit is guaranteed to bite down hard on players who can’t keep it straight.

Likely the most heroic finish in Valspar and Snake Pit history was in 2015, when Jordan Spieth edged Patrick Reed and Sean O’Hair to gain a playoff victory. Spieth manufactured three incredible par-saves at 16, 17 and 18 to earn the playoff, then buried a 30-footer at 16, the third playoff hole, to seal the win.

Ernie Els, sadly, authored the signature disaster at the Snake Pit, back in 2012. Els, who had stated a few years earlier that “Copperhead is the best course that the PGA Tour visits in Florida,” had the Valspar Championship in his grasp, until a missed 5-footer at 16, a shoved 4-iron at 17 and a missed par putt at 18 left him one shot shy of the playoff.

Here’s a closer look at the three holes that will strike fear in the field this week.

No. 16
Par 4, 475 yards

Known as “the Moccasin,” 16 sports a slender, pine-framed fairway and water off the tee down the entire right side. The right-dogleg played to a 4.210 scoring average in 2017, with bogeys and worse outnumbering birdies by 26 percent to 11 percent. March breezes and the configuration of the lake typically prevent the long and strong from taking shortcuts, yet an overly-powered draw off the tee can run into the pine straw. For control, many pros will use 3-wood off the tee, which then leaves an even longer, tougher shot into the green. While the green itself is large and wide, hole locations on the front and on the right are particularly demanding for any player trying to place his approach close to the hole.

No. 17
Par 3, 215 yards

This hole is aptly named “the Rattler,” because the simple act of finding the putting surface and two-putting for par will give many contenders the shakes. The 17th isn’t a blow-up hole, as is the case with other penultimate par-3s on Tour. Instead, it’s a gut-check of a different sort: a forced-carry, long-iron shot when the pressure is on, to a large, pear-shaped green that’s well-guarded by bunkers and trees. From front to middle, the putting surface is dauntingly narrow. Any hole cut up front or behind the bunkers requires an exquisitely struck shot to get close. Sure, there’s plenty of room in the back of the green, but landing there and putting down to the hole is no easy feat. An over-par scoring average of 3.111 last year is indicative of its difficulty, as only eight percent of the field made birdies, versus 19 percent who bogeyed. Glory can be had, however. Credit South African Charl Schwartzel, whose birdie here in 2016 propelled him to a playoff, where he downed Bill Haas for the Valspar title.

No. 18
Par 4, 445 yards

The namesake 18th is called “Copperhead,” and it bares its fangs throughout. At only 445 yards, it doesn’t strike fear on the scorecard yardage alone. Instead, it menaces with an uphill climb narrowed by trees and bunkers to a semi-blind, severely sloping (back-to-front) green fronted by sand. Again, due to the slender landing area, and to the premium in finding it, many players hit less than driver off the tee, leaving them a l-o-n-g approach. Nearly a quarter of the field played this hole in bogey or worse in 2017, leading to a stroke average of 4.151.

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‘I was totally nervous’: The last time Tiger Woods played a tournament at Innisbrook, he had a partner, Kelli Kuehne

Art Stricklin — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 16:45:00 +0000

DALLAS – When Tiger Woods announced Friday that he would make his first-ever appearance at the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship, at the Innisbrook Resort in Florida next week, memories came flooding back to Kelli Kuehne.

That’s because the last time Woods played Innisbrook’s Copperhead course in competition, it was as Kuehne’s partner — in the 1996 JCPenney Classic mixed-team event.

When reached by phone Friday, Kuehne said she and Woods were both still kids at heart — she was 19, Woods was 20 — and longtime friends who spent as much time goofing off that week as they did playing golf.

“One day we had a contest to see who had the most Nike logos on their clothes and clubs,” said Keuhne, who was then a rising star with a U.S. Girls Amateur and a pair of U.S. Women’s Amateur titles on her resume. “I think I wound up with 21 logos. He had almost that many, but I still beat him.”

“Another day his caddie Fluff [Cowan] spent time showing my brother and caddie Trip how to read a yardage book and how he marked each hole. It was my first event as a professional and I was totally nervous.”

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Woods not so much. Though he, too, was a newbie pro, Woods was accustomed to the spotlight. He had already won his first professional event, in Las Vegas, so Tigermania was in full swing when he and Kuehne arrived at the Tampa-area resort.

“We were having dinner one night at the resort and this lady just walks up and hands Tiger her baby and says, ‘Please take a picture with my baby.’ I mean, right in the middle of dinner. I don’t think it even fazed him. He said, ‘Sure, I’ll take a picture.’

“He was just rolling at the time, he was Tiger, and he was the next one.”

Woods was close friends with the Kuehne family and often stayed with them when he was competing in junior events in North Texas. He and Kelli would play together, alongside her brothers, Trip and Hank, who were also serious sticks.

Woods and Kelli finished second in the Innisbrook event, one behind Mike Hulbert and Donna Andrews, but Woods still stole show.

“I remember really fast greens and tree-lined fairways everywhere, which I spent a lot of time chipping out of,” Kuehne says. “He didn’t have any problems — he just blasted it in the fairways, chipped it close and made some putts.”

The galleries lapped it up.

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“I saw some big crowds in my career, but never anything like that,” Kuehne says. “I know I will never forget it as long as I live the craziness of the entire scene of people everywhere and just wanting to touch Tiger. I was just totally overwhelmed by the entire circus of the event.”

Kuehne won once on the LPGA tour, in 1999, but injuries ultimately forced her into retirement. She recently moved back to her hometown of Dallas, where she still plays golf with friends and does some teaching.

When Woods returns to Innisbrook next week, she will be watching the telecast.

“Just to relive those fun memories together,” she says. “It’s something I will never forget.”

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Adam Hadwin takes Valspar Championship lead

Fri, 10 Mar 2017 20:12:00 +0000

Adam Hadwin has his eye on his first PGA Tour victory after shooting a second-round 64 at the Valspar Championship on Friday.

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