The 2022 Valspar Championship will be underway this week. Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, and Dustin Johnson are among the top golfers expected to have success at Innisbrook Resort, but here are three sleepers who could be making even louder noises there. It’s not always the favorites who win tournaments in the PGA TOUR. It was not that long ago when Joaquin Niemann won The Genesis Invitational followed by a victory by Stepp Straka at the Honda Classic. A sleeper can definitely defy expectations. Check out some of the sleepers in the 2022 Valspar Championship below.
Hadwin is coming off a strong performance last week at THE PLAYERS Championship, as he finished with a T9. It was his first top-10 performance in a PGA TOUR event this year and second overall this season. He had a T6 in last October’s Shriners Children’s Open. But perhaps the biggest reason why Hadwin deserves attention ahead of the 2022 Valspar Championship is the fact that he is actually a former winner of the tournament. Hadwin topped the field at the 2017 edition of the Valspar Championship, scoring a 14-under 270 to take home a cool sum of $1.134 million. That remains his only PGA TOUR win.
Nothing that NeSmith has done this season has grabbed most people’s attention. He is only 9 of 15 in the 2021-22 PGA TOUR campaign and is coming off a missed cut at THE PLAYERS Championship. If there’s an upside for NeSmith for his chances to shock the field at the 2022 Valspar Championship, it’s that he had a couple of sub-70 rounds in his only start at Innisbrook so far, going 69 in the second and third rounds of the event’s 2021 edition. He finished 21st in that tournament with a 5-under 279.
After missing a payout at the WM Phoenix Open last February, Taylor has gone 2 of 2 with a T16 at Th Honda Classic and a T32 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He has not seen PGA TOUR action since, so he will be well-rested when he tees off this week at Innisbrook, where he is 3 of 6 with a career-best finish there of 24th place (2019). He shot a 69 in the first round of the 2021 Valspar Championship before flaming out with a 75 in the next round.
