Preview and Prediction for the 2015 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill
You know it’s close to the Masters when Bay Hill’s Arnold Palmer Invitational surfaces on the wall calendar.
Arnold Palmer, like John Madden, is more known for something other than his day job. In Madden’s case, it’s a video game. In Palmer’s case, it’s a delectable beverage. The world hasn’t been the same since desegregation was lifted from the iced tea-lemonade barrier.
As for the tournament at hand, the top five players in the Official World Golf Rankings will be in attendance: Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Bubba Watson, Adam Scott and Jason Day.
Tiger Woods will not drive his Buick to Bay Hill, a course he’s conquered eight times. It raises serious questions about whether he’ll be ready for the Masters. We’ll address that later.
So go on, get your iced tea and your lemonade, mix them together and kick back for a look at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Where to Watch and Tournament Info
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Where
Bay Hill Club & Lodge
7,419 yards, Par 72
Orlando, Florida
What
Total Purse: $6,300,000
Winning Share: $1,134,000
FedEx Points to Winner: 500
When
Thursday-Friday
2-6 p.m. ET, Golf Channel
Saturday-Sunday
12:30-2:30 p.m. ET, Golf Channel; 2:30-6 p.m., NBC
Biggest Storylines
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Tiger Woods Not Playing
Woods won’t play in the Arnold Palmer Invitational—a tournament he has won eight times—for the second straight year.
His game has curdled, but if we take him at his word, he’s doing his best. Woods wrote on his website:
"I've put in a lot of time and work on my game and I'm making strides, but like I've said, I won't return to the PGA TOUR until my game is tournament ready and I can compete at the highest level.
I hope to be ready for the Masters, and I will continue to work hard preparing for Augusta.
"
Last we saw Woods he grimaced his way through 12 awful holes at Torrey Pines. He’s been sinking down the OWGR where he currently sits at 87.
Rushing back into tournament play was his biggest mistake early this year. Then again, he learned some valuable lessons about the relationship status of his game: It’s complicated.
Will he be at Augusta? That’s an entirely different question than will he be ready for Augusta.
Top Five Assembled
For a non-WGC or major event, having all top five players in the world in one tournament makes for exciting golf.
McIlroy, Stenson, Watson, Scott and Day will play this week, and three of them have a lot to prove in this young season.
Stenson has played great golf and needs to keep that up if he’s to win that elusive major everyone thinks he should have by now. Scott missed the cut at the Valspar Championship, and McIlroy has yet to reclaim that 2014 form.
Watson and Day are the only winners so far out of the top five (Watson won his tournament in late 2014 as part of the wraparound schedule.).
There’s a serious battle among four of these golfers as they try to supplant McIlroy. He has a lead the size of a leviathan, but he looks about as vulnerable as we’ve seen him since about this time last year.
Is the 2015 Masters Champion Playing at Bay Hill?
Patrick Reed, Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth are not playing at Bay Hill this weekend, while as previously stated, the top five players in the OWGR are.
Those three names above have all won this year on tour and are all playing very good golf, especially Reed. Spieth will get a lot of Masters hype since he just won the Valspar and made a nice run in 2014 to finish tied for second at Augusta.
It’s tough to pick against Reed, Johnson and Spieth at the Masters, especially since the attention will be paid to the men in the top five who have three green jackets among them.
The Favorites
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Rory McIlroy
After missing the cut in the Honda Classic, McIlroy followed that up finishing tied for ninth at Doral. Not a bad jump. How he plays at Bay Hill will go a long way to measure how Augusta-ready his mind and game are for the Masters.
His fellow Northern Irishman, Graeme McDowell, said in the Orlando Sentinel, "He's just playing golf at a different level. It's tough to compare late '90s and early 2000s because I think the fields are [better] now. Tiger raised the bar. But I think Rory is doing to field these days what Tiger was doing back in those days.”
In six rounds of golf, McIlroy hasn’t shot a single round in the 60s. That’s not exactly promising, but it’s also not exactly time to dive into the panic room yet.
Bubba Watson
Watson has two green jackets and used a tied-for-fourth effort at Bay Hill to win his first Masters in 2012. He withdrew from last year’s event but still managed to win at Augusta.
Watson moved past Stenson to No. 2 in the OWGR and is tearing up the stat sheet while doing it. He’s No. 1 in scoring average with 69.368 and No. 2 in driving behind Johnson. Watson is No. 1 in strokes gained: total and No. 3 in scrambling.
This lefty will be tough to beat at Bay Hill.
Jason Day
Day showed a bit of weakness by finishing tied for 31st at Doral. Prior to that, he scored consecutive top fives.
Day told ESPN.com’s Bob Harig, “Everyone knows that you just don't get anywhere in life without working hard and putting the dedication in the profession that you love. I feel like I should be winning more, but it's a process, and I'm just really happy with how things have started.”
Day is playing like a top-five player. He’ll be one of the favorites to win every major this year and every tournament he enters. His clean driving and high rate of GRR make him a big threat to win here and be the first repeat winner on tour in 2015.
Honorable mention: Henrik Stenson
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The Dark Horses
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Keegan Bradley
Keegan Bradley hasn’t had a super start to his 2015 season, notching just one top 10. He has been driving the ball well (15th in distance at 302 yards) and ranks 12th in strokes gained: tee-to-green.
He finished second in this tournament a year ago, which makes him a sneaky pick to steal it this year.
Bradley birdied No. 16 and No. 17 in 2014 and nearly forced a playoff when his birdie putt on No. 18 stayed left. Bradley settled for second behind…
Matt Every
Matt Every? Yes, Every won this event in 2014 by holding off a late charge by Bradley and jumping past Scott.
He overcame a nine-shot weekend deficit and was left holding the trophy Sunday afternoon. Every said on Golf.com:
"Being close to winning out here, it can be kind of discouraging because if you don't win, you just wonder if it's ever going to happen. And sometimes you tell yourself, `Well, maybe it's meant to be somewhere else, somewhere better.' I don't see how it could get much better than this—being so close to where I grew up and all the fans out there that were cheering me on. It was awesome.
"
Every isn’t having a great 2015, but that doesn’t matter. He’s playing close to home and carries with him the confidence he earned by winning this event last year.
Sean O’Hair
Sean O’Hair finished second to Spieth in a dramatic playoff at the Valspar Championship. It’s that kind of effort that can renew confidence in a player’s game.
O’Hair lost his tour card for two years and clawed his way back to the PGA. O’Hair told Rodney Page of the Tampa Bay Times:
"It's been very stressful. That's why my family and I are moving down to Florida. I can't be the golfer I want to be and the husband and father I want to be and be up north. I told my wife that I'm going to make golf No. 1 and you have to be for that and I'm not going to feel guilty about doing it.
"
O’Hair has improved in each of the last four events. Winning is the only step up from his second-place effort at Copperhead.
Prediction
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Winner: Adam Scott
He missed the cut last weekend and that's not sitting well with the 2013 Masters champion. Scott had gone 57 consecutive events without missing a cut.
"It was pretty scrappy out there," Scott said in an Associated Press story (h/t ESPN.com). "Some loose shots, and some loose lag putts and some loose short putts. There's not many courses we play you can get away with that. I've got to tighten it up a little bit. Overall, I feel pretty good. There's a lot of good stuff in there."
Tightening up his game will win him this event. He finished tied for fourth at Doral and missed four putts inside five feet on last Friday in the Valspar to miss the cut. Mopping up his game just enough will put this tournament in his cross hairs come Sunday.
Scott added:
"If you can blame fatigue after a layoff, in fairness, I feel like I've crammed more into my last month than I have in a year. With the birth [of his first child], spending nine days at home with a newborn, coming over and practicing and play in an event, all in three weeks ... I feel like a lot has happened. I've been certainly sleeping soundly this week. I think it's just getting back adjusted to everything.
"
He'll want to bounce back strong before heading to Augusta.
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