The Valspar Championship is a professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

tournament on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also ...

, played annually on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club in

Palm Harbor Palm most commonly refers to: * Palm of the hand, the central region of the front of the hand * Palm plants, of family Arecaceae **List of Arecaceae genera * Several other plants known as "palm" Palm or Palms may also refer to: Music * Palm (ba ...

, northwest of

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...

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 S ...

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

Presidents Cup The Presidents Cup is a series of men's golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe. Europe competes against the United States in a similar but considerably ...

in October

, and the same week as the WGC-American Express Championship in September 2002. It was scheduled for the same week as the WGC-American Express Championship in 2001 in mid-September, but the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

(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 Tour Championship (stylized as the TOUR Championship) is a golf tournament that is part of the PGA Tour. It has historically been one of the final events of the PGA Tour season; prior to 2007, its field consisted exclusively of the top 30 ...

. The Chrysler Corporation was the title sponsor. Since 2007, the Tampa Bay event has been played in March, as

the Players Championship The Players Championship (commonly known as simply The Players, stylized by the PGA Tour as The PLAYERS Championship) is an annual golf tournament on the PGA Tour. Originally known as the Tournament Players Championship, it began in 1974. The ...

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. 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 A photochromic lens is an optical lens that darkens on exposure to light of sufficiently high frequency, most commonly ultraviolet (UV) radiation. In the absence of activating light, the lenses return to their clear state. Photochromic lenses may ...

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 EverBank, now TIAA Bank, is an American diversified financial services company providing banking, mortgages, and investing services. It is based in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. It operates through standard banking offices and through its Direct B ...

agreed to be presenting sponsor for the tournament. In September 2013, Valspar Corporation 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 Vijay Singh ( hif, विजय सिंह ; born 22 February 1963), nicknamed "The Big Fijian", is a Fijian professional golfer. He has won 34 events on the PGA Tour, including three major championships: one Masters title (2000) and two ...

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 Choi Kyung-Ju ( ko, 최경주; born 19 May 1970), commonly known as K. J. Choi, is a South Korean professional golfer who currently plays on the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions. Since turning pro in 1994, he has won more than twenty p ...

(2002, 2006) *

Retief Goosen Retief Goosen (born 3 February 1969) is a South African professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He has won two U.S. Opens, in 2001 and 2004, headed the European Tour Order of Merit in 2001 and 2002, and was in the top ten of th ...

(2003, 2009) *

Paul Casey Paul Alexander Casey (born 21 July 1977) is an English golfer who is a member of LIV Golf. He has also played on the US-based PGA Tour and the European Tour. In 2009, he achieved his highest position, third, in the Official World Golf Ranking. ...

(2018, 2019) *

Sam Burns Samuel Holland Burns (born July 23, 1996) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour. He played his college golf at Louisiana State University. In 2021, he won the Valspar Championship and the Sanderson Farms Championship. A ...

(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