Compiled by Multiple-Award-Winning PGA Professional Brendon R. Elliott, PrimePutt’s Director of Instruction and Lead Writer
Welcome back to The Greens This Week, where we look past the yardage and the par to examine what really matters: the putting surfaces that separate champions from everyone else. This week, the story splits into two. On the PGA TOUR, the Valspar Championship returns to Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida. On the LPGA Tour, the Fortinet Founders Cup heads to Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club in Menlo Park, California. Two very different tournaments. Two very different regions. And two completely different green exams.
Copperhead’s Florida Twist
Here’s the first thing to understand about Copperhead: these are not the grain-heavy, pure-Bermuda greens many fans assume they are just because the event is in Florida. Copperhead’s greens were rebuilt to USGA specifications with TifEagle bermudagrass during the 2015 restoration, but for tournament week, the 2026 Valspar setup calls for Poa trivialis overseed mown at .115 inches. That matters because it changes the personality of the surfaces. Instead of a week dominated by obvious Bermuda grain reads, players get a smoother, cooler-season roll that rewards precision and exposes any weakness in speed control.
These greens are not tiny in the Sawgrass sense, but they are still compact enough to matter. Copperhead’s average green size this week is 5,822 square feet, which is smaller than the 2026 PGA TOUR season average of 6,317 square feet through this point in the schedule. And the course does not give players much room to set up comfortable approaches: the average fairway width is only 20 yards, several greens sit elevated or tucked behind protection, and the official course notes repeatedly point to distance control and exact placement into the green as the real challenge. The par-3 4th plays to a heavily protected target, the 10th finishes into an elevated green, and the 13th is ringed by tightly mown areas that punish anything slightly off-line or under-struck.
That is why Copperhead’s greens should be framed less as a putting contest and more as a positioning test. An official PGA TOUR broadcaster packet listed Copperhead among the toughest greens on TOUR to hit from inside 125 yards last season, and the TOUR’s current Valspar preview says they are expected to run at 12.5 on the Stimpmeter. Add in a forecast that turns dry, sunny, and increasingly comfortable after early-week storms, and the week sets up for surfaces that could get progressively cleaner and more exacting as the tournament goes on. This is not a bomb-and-gouge week. It is a section-control week.
Sharon Heights, Reimagined
Sharon Heights presents a very different kind of green story. The course, originally designed by Jack Fleming in the early 1960s, reopened in 2024 after a sweeping renovation by Todd Eckenrode that rebuilt the tees, fairways, bunkers, and greens. For this week’s Fortinet Founders Cup, the setup sheet lists bentgrass greens mown at .110 inches with an average size of 5,000 square feet. So while Copperhead offers overseeded Florida Poa, Sharon Heights brings the LPGA a fresh, modern bentgrass test on newly rebuilt surfaces.
And this is where the renovation matters. The design brief was not just aesthetic. It was strategic and agronomic. Project descriptions from Origins, Golf Course Architecture, and First Call all point to greens redesigned for more hole locations and more variety, while Sharon Heights’ own project presentation says the club replanted with newer, disease-resistant grasses, added significant sand for improved root zones and drainage, and paired the work with a new irrigation approach built around recycled water and long-term sustainability. In plain English: these are not old greens dressed up for tournament week. They are new surfaces built to be firmer, cleaner, and more versatile.
That makes Sharon Heights the more intriguing unknown of the week. There does not appear to be a publicly posted target Stimpmeter number for the event, but bentgrass at .110 on a newly renovated course is already enough to demand respect. Now layer on the forecast in Menlo Park, which calls for very warm, sunny conditions through the opening rounds before cooling over the weekend. That could turn the greens into the central story of the championship - not because they will be quirky, but because true bentgrass on fresh contours tends to place a premium on exact pace, especially when hole locations can be moved around surfaces designed to create more options and more decisions.
What to Watch This Week
So here is the split-screen version of the week ahead. Copperhead’s greens will ask players to control entry angles, hit the correct sections, and survive misses around surfaces that are overseeded, quick, and defended by shape and surrounds. Sharon Heights will ask something a little different: solve a brand-new bentgrass puzzle, manage pace on smaller greens, and adapt quickly to contours and hole locations that many players will be seeing in competition for the first time. At Copperhead, the pressure is familiar but unforgiving. At Sharon Heights, the pressure is newer, quieter, and maybe even more interesting. That is what makes this week such a good one for anyone who cares about putting surfaces.
‘The Greens This Week’ drops every Wednesday and looks at the putting surfaces the best in the world from the PGA TOUR, LPGA Tour and DP World Tour will face in the coming week. Got a putting question or drill request? Drop us a line.
