Valspar hasn’t been the title sponsor throughout the PGA Tour’s run at Innisbrook, but no player could win twice in a row at Coppershead until Casey, 41, did it.

In 2018 his final round 65 overhauled, among others, runner-up Tiger Woods. On Sunday a 1-over-par 72 was good enough to win.

“It feels a little different, but not any less cool,’’ said Casey, who finished at 8-under-par 276 for the 72 holes.

Casey was paired with world No. 1 Dustin Johnson in the final round, a daunting task for any player.

“I felt Dustin was the favorite, but it didn’t mean I didn’t think I could beat him,’’ said Casey. He had other challengers, the most serious of which were Louis Oosthuizen, who closed with a 69 and Jason Kokrak, who shot 71. They tied for second, one stroke behind Casey.

Casey shared the lead with Austin Cook at 6-under-par 136 after two rounds and led Johnson by one going into the final 18.

The last player to repeat as a champion at PGA Tour event was Brooks Kopeka at the 2018 U.S. Open.

Luke Donald, the 2012 champion at Innisbrook when the tourney was named the Transitions Championship, had a chance to win again. Sidelined by injury most of the last two years, Donald started the day in a tie for fourth place and quickly made his presence known with an eagle on the first hole of the final round.

Donald dropped back after that and finished in a tie for ninth. Not only was his last win on Copperhead seven years ago but the former world No. 1 made his last cut in the 2018 Valspar Championship.

This week’s been different, though. Donald, the former Northwestern star, was ranked 919th in the world before the tournament teed off on Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course on Thursday. Through 54 holes he stands at 6-under-par 207. He trails leader and defending champion Paul Casey by three strokes, second-place Dustin Johnson by two and Jason Kokrak by one going into Sunday’s final round.

Donald is tied for fourth with Scott Stallings. Once the world’s No. 1-ranked player, Donald has played only sparingly the past two years while trying to cope with back problems. Valspar, the last tournament on the PGA Tour’s four-week Florida Swing, was only his second start of 2019. The first was at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January, where he missed the 36-hole cut.

“I had pretty low expectations,’’ admitted Donald after being assured he’d made the cut on the Copperhead course. He stayed in contention with a 2-under-par 70 on Saturday when he was paired with the long-hitting Johnson.

“The goal this week is to play four rounds and feel pretty good at the end of the tournament,’’ said Donald. “It’s been a while since I’ve done that – to go out and have some fun and appreciate being out here again.’’

Now 40, Donald’s showing didn’t surprise James “Bones’’ Mackay, Phil Mickelson’s long-time caddie who is now a TV analyst for NBC and The Golf Channel.

“It’s good to have Luke back,’’ said Mackay. He’s one heck of a player and a fierce competitor. I’ve seen him play a lot of Ryder Cup golf, and he can get it done when he’s healthy.’’

ORLANDO, Florida — What are the chances that the two Illinois players competing the most regularly on the PGA Tour would be paired in consecutive groups in Saturday’s third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational?

That’s what happened when Pekin’s D.A. Points, in green shirt and paired with Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, teed off in the twosome in front of Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman, in blue shirt and paired with Chesson Hadley.

There were some Illinois fans in the big galleries at Bay Hill, they noticed the significance of the pairings and they spent time watching both groups.

Streelman, who started the tourney 70-72, had birdies on Nos. 1 and 4 on the front side to climb the leaderboard, but wasn’t as sharp on the back nine. He finished with a 71 and goes into Sunday’s final round a 3-under-par 213 and in a tie for 23rd place. He climbed eight places off his showing in Round 3.

Points didn’t fare as well. He had a shaky front side making double bogey at No. 3 and bogeys at Nos. 8 and 9. That skid was offset by only one birdie, at No. 4. He did have two birdies on the back side, which more than offset his lone bogey. Points posted a 74, hit the 54-hole stop at 1-over–par 217 and is in a tie for 52nd. Among the players he’s tied with is the veteran Zach Johnson, who ballooned to a 76 in the third round.

England’s Matthew Fitzpatrick, who spent a semester at Northwestern before deciding the opportunities he had for winning a U.S. Amateur necessitated his turning pro early, shot 67 on Saturday and took a one-shot lead over defending champion Rory McIlroy going into the final round. Sixteen players are within four shots of the lead with. Fitzpatrick standing at 9-under-par for the tournament.

Points made his tournament a success with one swing in the first round. He holed out a 6-iron from 203 yards at No. 7 for a hole-in-one. There have been only three aces on that hole in the 40-year history of the tournament and two came this year. Spain’s Francesco Molinari had one before Points holed out.

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A playoff seemed inevitable in those one from the start – and there was one, however brief. Miguel Angel Jimenez won it with a par on the first hole. That eliminated Olin Browne and Bernard Langer, who had won the previous week at the Oasis Championship – a two-hour drive away in Boca Raton — by five strokes.

The Champions completed their Florida swing for 2019 and will compete in the Cologuard Classic this week in Tucson, Ariz.

In the season’s second full-field event in Naples there were record-tying 63s in the first round by Canadian Stephen Ames and Scotland’s Sandy Lyle. After three rounds there were two new leaders, Glen Day and Ken Tanigawa joining Ames. On both days the leaderboard was crowded at the top with multiple challengers within a shot, but that was nothing compared to the windy final round. Nine players held at least a share of the lead during the day.

Ames led with nine to play before being deflated by a double bogey. Jimenez never led until he had finished his round and Browne had blown a two-shot lead with a double bogey at No. 18. They, along with Langer finished at 13-under-par 200 on the Gary Player-designed course that had hosted the tournament in 1996 when Al Geiberger was 14-under in beating Isao Aoki by one shot.

Jimenez, winning for the seventh time on PGA Tour Champions, was in the sixth-from-the-last group to finish. He’s now won events in six straight years. His final round 66 – a score also posted by Browne – led to a $240,000 payoff.

The field included Steve Stricker and Hale Irwin, both missing from the event in Boca. Stricker, who was expected to be named the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain later in the week, was the runner-up in Naples in 2018. He finished tied for 11th this time. Irwin, 73, matched or bettered his age in each round en route to finishing in a tie for 58th.

Langer had broken Irwin’s record for career money-winning on PGA Tour Championship with his victory the week before but his playoff loss kept him from closing in on Irwin’s record for career victories on the 50-and-over circuit. Irwin has 45, Langer 39.

Langer won on PGA Tour Champions for the 39th time on Sunday, and his victory in the newly-named Oasis Championship was something special. He captured the first full-field event of the season on the 50-and-over circuit with his daughter Jackie carrying his bag.

This was Jackie’s first win as a caddie for her father. Her three siblings had already carried for one of their father’s victories. Langer lives just 10 minutes from the Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton, FL. – site of Sunday win — and Jackie, who is married and goes by the name of Langer John, also lives in the South Florida area.

They made for a terrific team on Sunday. Langer made birdies on five of the first seven holes and posted a final round 65. His 54-hole total of 19-under-par 197 was a tournament record but he has had plenty of success – two wins, two seconds, two thirds and eight top-10 finishes – in his hometown tournament.

This time he was a five-shot winner over Marco Dawson. Langer’s winning check was $375,000.

Davies was as dominant in the Senior LPGA as she was in the Open, played in July at Chicago Golf Club. Davies won that one by a whopping 10 strokes. She was a wire to wire winner in the Senior LPGA, which concluded on Wednesday on the Pete Dye Course here.

“It was a real victory for me,’’ said Davies, who won her 87th tournament world-wide with an 8-under-par 208 score for the 54 holes. “I played OK here before but never strung three rounds together.’’

Davies was third in the first major tournament for senior women professional last year when another England golfer, Trish Johnson, won the title. Davies owned the next two majors for that segment of players this year, but Wednesday’s win wasn’t as easy as her victory in Chicago.

“I had a five-shot lead (going into the last round) there,’’ said Davies. “Here I started with a three-shot lead, then it was a no-shot lead. On this course you can’t take anything for granted.’’

Davies made bogey on the first hole, then Sweden’s Helen Alfredsson posted four birdies in her first eight holes and Italy’s Silvia Cavalleri, paired with Davies, got into the mix as well. The three were tied at 5-under-par six holes into the round.

“I made a mistake (hitting a ball into a bunker and leaving one recovery shot in the sand) and I couldn’t recover,’’ said Alfredsson. “You feel horrible, but it was a joy to be here.’’

No doubt Davies’ tournament schedule paid off. Alfreddson had played in only two tournaments this year, and none since the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. Davies is among the busiest players tournament-wise in the senior ranks. She plays on the LPGA, European and Legends tours.

“Not taking anything away from Laura, she’s an amazing golfer,’’ said Alfredsson, “but it’s different for players who are playing tournaments regularly. We all love to play, but you don’t know how you’ll react (if you aren’t competing regularly).’’

NOTES: Riley Children’s Hospital, the tournament’s charitable beneficiary, sends many of its young patients to the event each year but on Wednesday Genevieve Bennett Slater of Sullivan, Ind., was also on hand to introduce the players at the first tee. Now 91 years old, she was a Riley patient between the ages of 5 and 16 when she had multiple surgeries to avert a birth defect.

Sherri Turner was inducted into The Legends Hall of Fame at a pre-tournament banquet. On Wednesday she worked as a caddie for Martha Nause.

Defending champion Trish Johnson posted her third straight 73 and finished sixth. Juli Inkster, runner-up to Davies in the Senior Open, bounced back from a second-round 80 to shoot 73 and finish in a tie for12th.

Jamie Fischer, the teaching professional at Conway Farms in Lake Forest, shot 76 and was at 13-over-par 229, good for a tie for 24th in the 80-player field. Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray, who is on the teaching staff at Mistwood in Romeoville, was three shots behind Fischer overall but finishing strong. She rolled in a putt from off the green in concluding her round with back-to-back birdies.

Davies started Tuesday’s second round of the Senior LPGA Championship on the Pete Dye Course with a two-stroke lead, then promptly frittered it away with three-putt bogeys on the first and fourth holes. It didn’t take long for the long-hitting Davies to get back in the groove, however.

Birdies on Nos. 5 and 6 settled her down and after that it was clear sailing. She posted a 2-under-par 70 to hit the 36-hole stop in the 54-hole competition at 6-under-par 138. That left her two ahead of Brandie Burton, who shot a 66 – the low round of the tournament. Italy’s Silvia Cavalleri (69) and Australian Jane Crafter (71) are another shot back in a tie for third.

Davies, who won at Chicago Golf Club in July by a whopping 10-shot margin, credited a new putter for her solid play over the first 36 holes here. She saw one to here liking on the putting green and Anthony Bradley, a member of French Lick’s professional staff, had a model that Davies put in her bag for the tournament. She used it to make birdie putts of 25 feet at No. 11 and 30 feet at No. 15 on Tuesday.

“It was like night and day,’’ said Davies. “Today actually was pleasurable. Yesterday was misery.’’

“I could actually feel my hands today,’’ said Burton, who hit 16 of the 18 greens in regulation in her hot round. “I couldn’t feel my hands on the putter yesterday to save my life. It’s nice to go into the last round with confidence. It’s been a long time since I shot that number.’’

Not all the players shook off the first-round gloom, however. England’s Trish Johnson, the defending champion who is bidding for her third straight victory on the Pete Dye Course, posted a second straight 73 and is eight shots back going into the final round.

Michelle Redman, last year’s runner-up, shot 75 and Juli Inkster, the champion here in 2015, started the day in second place and dropped into a tie for 19th after shooting an 80.

Today’s champion will receive $90,000 from the tourney’s $600,000 purse.

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NOTES: Shelley Hamlin, who was inducted into The Legends Hall of Fame here on Friday, passed away on Monday night following a long battle with cancer. She was 69. Hamlin enjoyed a long playing career on both the LPGA and Legends circuits.

Nancy Scranton, who developed her game while growing up in Centralia, Ill., and is also a Legends Hall of Famer, withdrew from the tournament after suffering a pinched nerve in her neck. She joined The Golf Channel broadcast team for Tuesday’s round.

The two Chicago players in the 79-player field, Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray and Lake Forest’s Jamie Fischer, are tied at 9-over par 153 entering the final round. Both improved their scores from the first round, Jeray shooting 75 and Fischer 76.

Temperatures in the 40-degree range and winds of 15 miles per hour made play difficult for the 80 starters in the second of the two major championships for senior women golfers. Davies bundled up with a blanket in her golf cart at times, but she was hot early in the round when she opened a three-stroke lead.

An eagle at the par-5 seventh hole triggered Davies’ fast start, but Inkster matched it at a most critical time – on her last hole. That brought Inkster to 3-under-par 69 for the day and in a three-way tie for second with Sweden’s Liselotte Neumann and Maria McBride. The trio is one stroke behind Davies.

Davies had a tough finish. She hit her tee shot on the par-3 17th hole over the green and made bogey, her lead slipping to two shots. Neumann and McBride birdied No. 18 and Inkster rolled in her 15-foot for eagle before Davies – playing in the last threesome – finished her round.

After the bogey at No. 17 Davies sent her tee shot far left on the par-5 finishing hole, the ball ending up in high grass.

“We could never find the ball,’’ said Davies. “Fortunately I made birdie on my second ball.’’

That “birdie’’ was actually a bogey on the scorecard so that created a three-shot swing with Inkster and two-shot swing with Neumann and McBride. Davies won at Chicago Golf Club by a whopping 10-stroke margin but this week’s 54-hole competition wouldn’t seem to be so one-sided.

“Winning two senior majors in one year would be incredible,’’ said Davies. “I’d love to have a chance, but you’ve got to be aggressive around here.’’

The Pete Dye Course was set up shorter than usual (about 6,100 yards) to help the players combat the chilly weather. Eight finished under par, but defending champion Trish Johnson (73) wasn’t among them. She is bidding for her third straight victory on the Pete Dye Course after finishing second to Inkster in 2015 Legends Championship here.

Neumann started her round with two bogeys, then charged back with birdies on five of the next nine holes. She did it without Mark Williams, her long-time caddie. Williams is on the bag for another player in the LPGA’s qualifying tournament.

“He left me for a younger woman,’’ said Neumann, who drew laughs with that comment after a day in which the golf wasn’t much fun.

“Our round took 5 hours 40 minutes. It was a long day out there,’’ said Inkster.

“Keeping yourself warm, that was the hardest part,’’ said McBride. “There was a lot of stopping and waiting.’’

McBride had reason to celebrate. Monday marked her 45th birthday. If it had come a day later she wouldn’t have been eligible to play in the Senior LPGA Championship. Only players who have reached their 45th birthday are eligible.

The forecast is for better weather in the next two rounds before the champion gets $90,000 from the tourney’s $600,000 purse on Wednesday. .

The inaugural staging was paired with the Donald Ross Centennial Classic, a Symetra Tour event, to create a big two weeks of tournament golf on both of the resort’s courses. This year the events were split up, with the Symetra stop remaining in July and the Senior LPGA taking fall dates that figure to made it more special.

The PGA Tour has already conducted its four major championships and PGA Tour Champions has staged its five. The LPGA has completed its five majors for the regular tour, and the senior women’s played their first U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club in July.

That means the second Senior LPGA Championship, with its $600,000 purse, will be the last professional major championship on any tour in 2018. It’ll also be the only one played entirely on weekdays. That encouraged television coverage, and The Golf Channel will carry the action live from 4-6 p.m. for the three tournament rounds beginning on Monday.

Barely a year ago there was one glaring void in the golf tournament calendar, with no major tournament for the senior women professionals who contributed so much to the growth on the LPGA.

French Lick was instrumental in correcting the problem, helping The Legends Tour put on its biggest tournament of the year for four years on the Pete Dye Course. The Legends Championship grew into the Senior LPGA Championship last year and it found a home on the Pete Dye Course as well.

First of the pre-tournament festivities for the tourney’s second playing were held on Thursday, with a gala and auction benefitting the Riley Children’s Hospital. First of two Faegre Baker Daniels Pro-Ams was held on Friday and the latest induction class into The Legends Hall of Fame – which is housed at French Lick Springs Resort –s was completed at the post-round dinner. Shelley Hamlin’s selection was announced on Thursday night.

On Sunday eight players will decide the Legends Honors Division title, with Jan Stephenson defending her crown in the immediate aftermath of her selection to the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Once the tournament proper begins, however, the focus will be clearly on England’s Trish Johnson. She won the last of the four Legends Championships in 2016 by beating Juli Inkster in a six-hole playoff and led wire to wire last year in claiming the first Senior LPGA title.

Johnson was a three-stroke winner over Michele Redman in the first Senior LPGA, and they were the only players under par for the 54 holes. Inkster, who won The Legends Championship at French Lick in 2015, didn’t play in the first Senior LPGA because she was part of the broadcasting team for the U.S. Women’s Open.. Now she’s back as is England’s Laura Davies, who won the first U.S. Senior Women’s Open by a whopping 10 shots in Chicago.

The 81 starters include five members of the LPGA Hall of Fame and 19 in the field have won LPGA major titles.