Valspar Championship 2024 Prop Bets: Three picks to finish in Top 20

Golf tipster Jamie Worsley has already given us his Valspar Championship preview but he has also scoured the specials markets and given us three tips from the Top 20 market to get stuck into.

I’m going to give the first-round leader market a swerve this week. The weather looks pretty even across the board on Thursday and with no discernible tee-time bias in recent years, it would be hard to confidently rule out many in this field.

Instead I’ll focus on the Top 20 market and I have a trio of selections who I’m expecting to enjoy a good week around the Copperhead Course.

2 pts Sam Ryder Top 20 @ 10/3 

Florida’s Sam Ryder has been producing some eye-catching approach displays this year and as the rest of his game has caught up on his last two starts, he’s been able to considerably improve his results.

Ryder ranks 10^th in this field over his last fifty rounds in approach, which has been well on show throughout 2024. However, struggling with the rest of his game he was only able to managed a best of 31^st at Pebble Beach, and missed three of his first five cuts of the season.

He finally found something with the putter two starts ago at PGA National, ranking 9^th, which took him to a then season’s best 21^st-place finish; then improving further by finishing 16^th in last week’s PLAYERS Championship, again ranking top 10 in putting and producing his best driving performance of the season.

With all areas now looking positive, Ryder comes to a place at which he finished a career-best 19^th in 2023 - where he led the field on the greens – and I’m expecting him to progress once more this week.

1.5 pts Ryan Moore Top 20 @ 6/1

Ryan Moore has had some terrific finishes in the Valspar Championship in years gone by and with clear positives to take from his 45^th-place finish at TPC Sawgrass, he can roll back the years this week.

Encouraging results have been hard to come by for Moore this year but he hasn’t looked too far away from putting some consistency together, missing the cut by just one on two occasions over his first four starts.

He’s now made the weekend in two of his last three tournaments; finishing 60^th in Mexico before responding to a missed cut in the Cognizant Classic with that 45^th-place finish last week.

Moore was rock-solid tee-to-green in THE PLAYERS, ranking 16^th and it was particularly encouraging to see him finally rediscover some of that previous superb approach play; as he ranked 9^th in the field and in gaining 1.74 strokes per round, produced his best display in this area since the 2020 AmEx.

This should see him arrive at the Copperhead Course in much more confident mood than recent years; a place where he has finished inside the top 20 on five occasions. Including top 10s when 3^rd in 2016, 5^th in 2015 and 8^th in 2008.

With top 5s at Riviera, Bay Hill and Quail Hollow to his name, Moore has plenty of positive displays at comp courses and if keeping up the gains he made in approach last week, he’d stand a good chance of adding another Valspar top 20.

1 pt Ricky Castillo Top 20 @ 8/1

One-time #1 amateur, Ricky Castillo has been in superb form on the Korn Ferry Tour this season and looks a big price for a top 20 on his PGA Tour debut this week.

The former Florida Gator turned pro last year and made an immediate impact, winning the Wichita Open on the Korn Ferry Tour on his first professional start. He followed that with an 11^th-place finish on his next start on that tour but struggled for the rest of the season, and after failing to secure a PGA Tour card at Q-School, it was back to the second-tier this year.

After missing the cut in The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic on his first start of the year, Castillo has gone on to finish inside the top 20 in each of his next five starts, including claiming three top 10s when finishing 5^th in Panama, 5^th in Chile and 7^th in Colombia; and only failing to break par once in his last sixteen rounds.

Stats for him are hard to come by, though he did play and miss the cut in the 2020 US Open, where he looked strong off-the-tee and with the short game. He again drove the ball well – straight and far - when recording that victory on the Korn Ferry Tour last year and also hit plenty of greens, ranking 11^th in GIR.

His performance at that traditional, tree-lined course, which doglegs throughout and requires a good deal of strategy, should serve him well here and as an immense talent, in form and teeing it up in familiar surrounds, he can make an attention-grabbing PGA Tour debut at Innisbrook.

You can find all Jamie's latest Golf Betting Tips at Betfred Insights