2021 Valspar Championship: Top 10 power rankings at Innisbrook

Corey Conners has been scorching hot. Can he keep it up at a tournament he’s played just once?

I believe so.

The Canadian’s Valspar Championship debut went well in 2018 when he fired 67-69-68-77 to finish T-16th. He led after each round before falling back Sunday.

Conners was outside the top 500 in the world at the time. He failed to Monday qualify, but got into the field after Kyle Stanley withdrew. Conners has made the most of Mondays, sponsor exemptions and any other ways necessary to squeeze into fields.

Now, he’s rolling inside the top 50 in the world and ended up getting it done on a Sunday the next year (2019 Texas Open) for his first career PGA Tour win.

The reason for his lofty ranking is the performances he’s piling up. The 29-year-old owns four top-10 finishes in 2021, all of which have come in his last six starts. Conners’ best career finish at a major came at the Masters (T-8th) and he also finished T-4th his last start at the RBC Heritage.

He shows up against top competition like at Augusta (T-10th in the fall) as well as taking third at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and seventh at the Players Championship. Conners has made 13 of his last 14 cuts.

His short game stats are the lone area of weakness this season. That’s mitigated when you’re sixth on the PGA Tour in greens in regulation (71.77%). He’s also scary accurate off the tee, ranking 10th by hitting 70% fairways.

Conners is also ninth in final round scoring average (68.86) so don’t expect another 77 if he’s at the top of the leaderboard again going into Sunday.