The Valspar Championship is a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, played annually on the Copperhead Course at

Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club is a hotel and country club resort in the southeastern United States, located in Palm Harbor, Florida, northwest of Tampa, Florida, Tampa. The complex consists of a 620-room hotel, four golf courses, spa, three rest ...

in Palm Harbor, northwest of Tampa, Florida.

History

The tournament was founded in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

as the Tampa Bay Classic, and was originally an alternate event in autumn and late summer. It was opposite the Presidents Cup in October

, and the same week as the

WGC-American Express Championship The WGC Championship was a professional golf tournament that was held between 1999 and 2021. It was one of the three or four annual World Golf Championships until the number of WGC events was reduced to two following the 2021 season. Under sp ...

in September

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

. It was scheduled for the same week as the WGC-American Express Championship in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

in mid-September, but the September 11 attacks (on Tuesday) forced the cancellations of both tournaments. From 2003 to 2006, the Tampa Bay event had a slot in the schedule to itself in late October (and early November in 2003) as the last full-field event before the Tour Championship. The

Chrysler Corporation Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

was the title sponsor. Since

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

, the Tampa Bay event has been played in March, as the Players Championship moved six weeks later, to mid-May. For a time, the tournament was without a title sponsor, leading to speculation on its fate beyond 2007. Then, on January 24, 2007, tournament officials and the PGA Tour announced a six-year sponsorship agreement with PODS of

Clearwater, Florida Clearwater is a city located in Pinellas County, Florida, United States, northwest of Tampa and St. Petersburg. To the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and to the southeast lies Tampa Bay. As of the 2020 census, the city had a populat ...

. However, the company chose to exercise an option to withdraw as title sponsor after the 2008 event, and tournament officials searched to find a replacement. On June 4, 2008, Transitions Optical, Inc., the photochromic lens manufacturer headquartered locally in Largo, was announced as the new title sponsor. Transitions left the event after the 2012 season. Just two weeks before the 2013 tournament, EverBank agreed to be presenting sponsor for the tournament. In September 2013,

Valspar Corporation The Valspar Corporation is an American manufacturer of paint and coatings based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With over 11,000 employees in 26 countries and a company history that spans two centuries, it was the sixth largest paint and coating corpor ...

signed a four-year deal to become title sponsor of the event, now named the Valspar Championship. On March 9, 2016, the PGA Tour, Valspar Corporation, and Copperhead Charities – the Valspar Championship host organization – announced a three-year title sponsorship extension, thus carrying Valspar's commitment to the tournament through 2020. This extension occurred in the midst of the original contract period, which was from 2013 to 2017. Vijay Singh set the tournament record in 2004 with 266 (−18) and won by five strokes.

Winners

''Note: Green highlight indicates scoring records.''

Multiple winners

Four players have won this tournament more than once: * K. J. Choi (2002, 2006) * Retief Goosen (2003, 2009) * Paul Casey (2018, 2019) * Sam Burns (2021, 2022)

References

External links

*
Coverage on PGA Tour's official site
{{coord, 28.111, N, 82.754, W, type:event, display=title PGA Tour events Golf in Florida Sports competitions in Florida Sports in Pinellas County, Florida Recurring sporting events established in 2000 2000 establishments in Florida