2025 Valspar Tournament Week March 20 – 23, 2025 - Ticket Sales Started December 2024
Tampa, FL - “We’re putting on a professional golf tournament, and we want to put on the best one that we possibly can,” said Tracy West, Valspar Championship Tournament Director.
Tampa Bay’s annual PGA TOUR golf event, the Valspar Championship, is played every March on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor. Hosted by Copperhead Charities and managed by Pro Links Sports, proceeds from the championship are donated to over 90 charities. In 2024, this totaled $1.36 million.
The Championship traces its roots all the way back to 1977, and its current model of success has been in place since 2014 when Valspar paint became the title sponsor of the event.
“The tournament used to be thought of as a very Pinellas County centered event,” West said. “Of the 46 PGA TOUR events across the year, there’s four in Florida and we were always thought of as the smallest.”
Working the tournament since 2014, West and her team launched a variety of strategies to grow the event and enhance the spectator experience. Reaching out to the Copperhead members, West broadened the tournament’s geographic reach through community engagement.
West and her team strove toward “making sure that we recruited top businesspeople from Hillsborough County, from Pasco, broadening the geographic reach and getting the right people involved because they serve as ambassadors into the community,” she said.
The Tournament was also expanded to become a fun-filled nine-day experience. The Championship kicks off the Sunday prior with a 5K Run/Walk on the Innisbrook grounds followed by an executive women’s day and several Pro-Am rounds in the next few days. The four-day main championship rounds begin on Thursday. Spectators can participate in a variety of activities during the week, including a family fun zone, hospitality venues, color scouts that give prizes to colorfully dressed attendees, and a live concert held one night. The week wraps up the Monday after the tournament, as “we have a lot of corporate folks who come out and play the golf course with the same pin placements that they saw on Sunday,” West explained.
These strategies have seen massive success. Over the last 10 years, the tournament has grown a lot in stature,” West said. “It’s a lot bigger, so way more fans, way more sponsors, higher economic impact into the community, and great amounts to charity.”
Among the 90+ charities supported by the tournament are Tampa General Hospital Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Feeding Tampa Bay, and many others. Earlier this year, the board and staff of Copperhead Charities participated in a five-day charity caravan, visiting 25 of the charities they support.
“It was a great opportunity to really see and hear firsthand the impact we’re having,” West said. “To hear that and get to meet some of the people that have been impacted by the dollars we’ve donated was very inspirational and it helps us strive to be even more successful so we can have even higher charity next year.”
In addition to supporting local charities, the Tournament has a high economic impact for the area, not only during the week of the championship but also in bringing exposure to the region, driving tourism. The championship is broadcast on both NBC and the Golf Channel, a broadcast feed that showcases Tampa Bay to over 200 countries around the world.
“We have one study that says we have 55 to over 70-million-dollar economic impact annually,” West said. “The economic impact is something we’re really proud about, but also the charitable impact, changing people's lives, and just showcasing Tampa Bay.”
West says that these accomplishments couldn’t have happened without the support of the local community. “We have over 2,000 volunteers in the Tampa Bay region that volunteer their time to help us put this tournament on and pro golf doesn’t exist without that,” West said. “We’re very grateful for the support of the community, the people who buy tickets, the people who volunteer, and the sponsors.”
Members of the Tampa Bay Chamber since 2014, the Valspar Championship has found the Chamber to be a valuable resource in engaging with the business community.
“It’s a way for businesses to make sure they’re communicating to each other what they’re doing and what they can offer,” West said. “The Chamber really helps us drive our message.”
DID YOU KNOW:
In December, tickets went on sale for the 2025 Valspar Tournament Week March 20 – 23, 2025. Click to see the full schedule of events. Get your tickets today.