We promise we’re not trying to jinx Davis Riley. Still, we can already hear now what Dan Hicks and Paul Azinger will be saying late on Sunday’s NBC broadcast of the Valspar Championship should the 25-year-old PGA Tour rookie who holds the 54-hole lead at Innisbrook Resort outside Tampa fail to close things out and capture his first tour title.
“You know … this wasn’t the finish Davis was hoping for, but it’s going to be a good learning experience.”
Maybe, maybe not. But it is certainly true that this is a situation Riley has never faced in his 24 previous tour starts. The former Alabama All-American whose career-best 62 on Saturday at the Copperhead Course vaulted him into a two-stroke lead over Matthew NeSmith, has never been better than T-15 entering the final round of a tournament so far in his young tour career. That was at The American Express in January, and he wound up finishing T-59.
The best Riley has been at the end of any round is T-5 after the Day 2 of the Sony Open in January, where he finished T-20. And his best PGA Tour finish to date? That was a T-7 at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship last October.
If this lack of experience wasn’t already potentially daunting, so is the leader board Riley is facing. NeSmith, 28, is also still looking for a first PGA Tour win (best finish T-6 at the 2020 Puerto Rico Open), but he seems to have tapped into something this week, setting the 36-hole tournament record after a Friday 61 before posting a Saturday 69.
More menacing are the two players three shots back in a tie for third: Justin Thomas and Sam Burns. Thomas is a fellow Crimson Tide alum who hasn’t won since last year’s Players Championship and is trying to add to his 14 career wins. He has to think this is an opportunity he can seize. And Sam Burns is the defending champion at Innisbrook, looking for a third tour win in 10 months. Burns was in contention last week at the Players Championship before stumbling with a final-round 76 that no doubt he’d like to erase with a solid performance on Sunday at Innisbrook.
Whoever emerges as the winner will earn a $1.404 million first place prize money payout from an overall purse of $7.8 million (Riley’s previous biggest prize money payout is $190,775 for that finish in Bermuda). Here’s the prize money payouts for each golfer who made the cut at the Valspar. Come back shortly after the end of the event on Sunday and we’ll update this with the names and individual prize money payouts.