PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Valspar Championship tournament director Tracy West remembers the purple cape of Hatcher Malnati flying in the air as he ran on to the 18th green at the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort to celebrate after his father, Peter, tapped in for victory at the 2024 Valspar Championship.
With a manufacturer of paint and coatings as its title sponsor, the longtime Tampa stop on the circuit dubs itself as “the most colorful stop on Tour” and sends 20 “color scouts” around the venue to hand out 2,500 prizes to fans who dress colorfully.
“The champ’s kid has one of our prizes on and it wasn’t staged,” West recalled.
Malnati, who had gone more than eight years and four months between his only other victory, snatched up his four-year-old son in his arms and broke into tears while giving one of the most heartfelt victory interviews anyone can remember. “Even I teared up and I’m not a crying person,” West said.
Malnati birdied the 17th hole in the final round for a 4-under 67 and a two-shot victory, his first since the 2015 Sanderson Farms Championship, that validated all his hard work and guaranteed two years of job security.
“Playing on the PGA Tour was just a dream. It wasn’t even a realistic goal. I was a very mediocre college player at a very mediocre college. Great college, mediocre golf program,” he said of his alma mater, the University of Missouri, where he met his wife Alicia. “So I was still that kid. I would go out to practice and every 6-footer at the end of my practice session was to win the tournament. And even at that point in my life, I imagined that moment when I would be married to the love of my life and she would come running out and we would have our family. Like, that’s something that I wanted.”
Malnati, 37, won the Valspar last year three weeks after taking his first lesson with Bradley Hughes, a former player, who gave him a swing thought of trying to feel as if the clubhead exits the hit with the club on the same path as at address. It worked but when Malnati watched highlights of his victory he noticed that he didn’t come close to achieving his desired swing plane.
“It was a powerful thought for me and it must have helped,” he said.
But it didn’t last long. Malnati has been mired in a slump for the last seven months, failing to record a top-30 finish since hoisting the Valspar trophy and missing the cut in seven of his last eight starts last season.
“When you win you can’t help but feel like, ‘Hey, I’ve got something, something’s clicked, I figured something out.’ And then the game is so humbling. I’ve been in this rut and I was kind of approaching that definition of insanity where I was working really hard, I figured the stuff that I did to help me win must be the right stuff, so I just did it over and over and over and over and over again. And I just wasn’t getting any results.”
On the one-year anniversary of his fruitful lesson with Hughes, he made the difficult decision to part ways and began working with Liam James, an Englishman who works with several Tour pros and was introduced to Malnati by his longtime trainer. It’s the first time Malnati hasn’t received instruction from a former player.
“He has studied the swing; he’s studied the mechanics. So it’s a different perspective for me. He’s taken me on a little bit of a different kind of route to understanding what I do. I think just having that different voice, that different perspective I’m learning, I’m growing,” he said.
Malnati hasn’t finished better than T-49 this season and last week he missed his fifth cut in eight starts this season. He did so in excruciating fashion, making a triple bogey on the final hole at TPC Sawgrass to miss the cut at the Players Championship by one stroke. But Malnati returns to a place with good vibes and where the pieces to the puzzle all fit in place. He will be honored at Innisbrook Resort during a ceremony at the end of play on Thursday at Peter Malnati Appreciation Day, and he remains as upbeat as ever that he is on the verge of turning a corner.
“We’re all just a hot streak and a little bit of confidence away from crushing it,” he said, and of his swing changes added, “I have that feeling that the sky’s the limit. Obviously, it’s all happening below the surface right now, we haven’t seen anything come to fruition in this short three-week time yet, but under the circumstances I feel really, really good.”