Located just outside of Tampa in Palm Harbor, Fla., the Copperhead course at Innisbrook Resort is one of the most underrated venues on the PGA Tour and encompasses one of the most complete tests of golf that players will face all year. Featuring narrow, pine tree-lined fairways and rolling terrain combined with the surrounding lakes, proper positioning off the tee is paramount. The 2023 champion, Taylor Moore, remarked: “This place is a ball-striker’s kind of paradise—fairway and green it to death.”
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Players will be challenged as they navigate numerous tight doglegs, elevation changes, 74 well-positioned bunkers, six holes with water danger, rough approaching four inches and tricky pin positions. The course has consistently played over par and ranks as the ninth-most difficult annual course on tour.
The makeup of the par-71 course is also far from traditional as there are five par 3s along with four par 5s. The course culminates at the “Snake Pit” with two difficult par 4s sandwiched between the challenging par-3 17th. Similar to TPC Sawgrass, positional golf is once again the name of the game as Innisbrook mitigates almost any advantage that bombers have off the tee. But this is not your typical “short” course. With 53 percent of approach shots coming from over 175 yards, players will need to be sharp with their long-distance approach game.
The field features nine of the top 25 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, including Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick, Ben Griffin, Akshay Bhatia and defending champion Viktor Hovland. Other notables in attendance are J.J. Spaun, Jacob Bridgeman, Patrick Cantlay, Corey Conners, Jordan Spieth, Wyndham Clark and Sahith Theegala.
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$9,000+ range Play: Viktor Hovland, $10,400 
Richard Heathcote
Coming off a T-13 at The Players Championship, Hovland continues to trend in the right direction. His approach play remains elite, gaining strokes in 25 of his past 26 starts. While he’s still searching for consistency with his short game, he has already spiked multiple times this season both on and around the greens. Being forced to play conservatively off the tee should also help mitigate some of the wildness with his driver.
The defending champion has an excellent track record here, also posting a T-3 in 2021. In a tournament where players like Sam Burns and Paul Casey have each won multiple times in the past seven years, don’t sleep on Hovland repeating that outcome.
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Play: Jacob Bridgeman, $9,600
Jacob Bridgeman just will not go away. As a talented yet unheralded player coming into this year, he is one of the most amazing runs in recent memory to start a season—seven consecutive top-18s and five top-eight finishes. And he’s doing it in some of the highest profile events of the year, including a win at the Genesis Invitational and a T-5 at last week’s Players Championship.
He has turned into the best putter in the world gaining an amazing 1.41 strokes per round so far in 2026 and has combined that with the 15th-best ball-striking numbers in this field. Oh, and one of his main strengths coming into the year was his short game around the greens. He finished third here last year and should once again be a strong play in DFS lineups.
Jacob Bridgeman in 2026.
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The roller coaster that is the “Jordan Spieth Experience” took folks for another ride at The Players. After an uneventful 73 in Round 1, he gained 4.4 strokes in Round 2, followed by losing 4.5 strokes in Round 3, and then bounced back with +3.7 strokes on Sunday to finish T-32.
The volatility hasn’t just been isolated to one week either. Spieth has lost strokes either off the tee or on approach in four of his past five starts, and he has just two top-10 finishes over the past year. At this price point, you’re essentially banking on a ceiling outcome, and with his current inconsistency, that’s a tough sell. He likely needs a top 10 to justify the elevated salary, and a tough course like Innisbrook just doesn’t feel like the spot to buy into the chaos.
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$8,000+ range Play: Nicolai Hojgaard, $8,900 
Icon Sportswire
With Ryo Hisatsune and Sahith Theegala soaking up much of the ownership in the upper $8K range, I’ll gladly pivot to Nicolai Hojgaard who has been positive across the board in each strokes gained category so far in 2026. Similar to Bridgeman, he has spiked numerous weeks with both his putter and irons. He also ranks in the top 10 in this field in both proximity from 150+ yards and in “Approach Scoring Opps”—our new Rabbit Hole scoring metric.
Fade: Rasmus Hojgaard, $8,100
Nicolai’s brother continues to underwhelm, missing consecutive cuts over the past two weeks. Rasmus tends to excel at “bomber” tracks where he can use his length with the driver to his advantage. This week he will be forced to club down and play more of a positional game off the tee. He’s missed the cut here twice in his only two starts, losing 2.34 strokes per round.
$7,000+ range Play: Bud Cauley, $7,500 
Jared C. Tilton
Cauley has been one of the most effective players on difficult, Innisbrook-like courses over the past two years, ranking eighth in this field in average strokes gained per round (+0.81). He also has proven course history, finishing fourth here last year. His recent form is quietly trending in the right direction with a T-32 at The Players and a T-18 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. With added emphasis this week on approach play and around-the-green performance, Cauley checks both boxes and profiles as an excellent course fit.
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Justin Edmonds
Ford’s ability to spike with his irons makes him the perfect ceiling play to target in this range. He ranks fourth in this field in SG/approach for the year and is gaining at least two strokes with his irons in 23 percent of his rounds. His positional accuracy off the tee on this narrow, tree-lined course should put him in prime position to attack these difficult greens.
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Ron Klos (@PGASplits101 on X) is a PGA Tour data analyst for Betsperts Golf.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
