Peter Malnati wins 2024 Valspar Championship

Peter Malnati (Tate Nations, Wikimedia Commons)

Peter Malnati of New Castle, Indiana has won the 2024 Valspar Championship at the Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida. Malnati posted a four-round score of -12 to beat fellow American Cameron Young of Briarcliff Manor, New York by two strokes, and Canadian Mackenzie Hughes and fellow American Chandler Phillips of Huntsville, Texas by three strokes. Young had a four round score of -10, while Hughes and Phillips had a four round score of -9.

Malnati had a first round score of five-under-par 66. What was so rare about Malnati’s first round score card is the fact he shot -5 despite the fact he bogeyed two par fives, which are normally holes where golfers collect birdies. In round two, Malnati shot even par, and once again had difficulty on the par-five fifth hole, as he posted a score of six. You do not see eventual winners with three sixes on their scorecard for the tournament often. Malnati then shot three-under-par 68 in round three, and four-under-par 67 in round four.

On the back nine on Sunday, Malnati was very clean, and was the only golfer among the contenders not to bogey. He birdied the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 17th holes to go from -8 to -12.

Malnati has once before on the PGA Tour. That was the 2015 Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi where he posted a four-round score of -18 and beat fellow Americans William McGirt of Lumberton, North Carolina and 2001 PGA Championship winner David Toms of Monroe, Louisiana by a stroke.

The other major story from the tournament was the fact that once again Young finished in second place. In his PGA career, Young has seven second place finishes and zero wins. The other six events Young has been second have been the 2021 Sanderson Farms Championship, the 2022 Genesis Invitational, the 2022 Wells Fargo Championship, the 2022 British Open, the 2022 Rocket Mortgage Classic, and the 2023 World Matchplay Championship.