Winners and Losers from the 2016 Arnold Palmer Invitational
The PGA Tour’s Florida Swing wrapped up with the conclusion of the Arnold Palmer Invitational and Jason Day’s hang-tough one-stroke victory over Kevin Chappell.
With Day, Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose all on the first page of the leaderboard when Sunday’s action commenced at plush Bay Hill, fans were keyed up for a first-rate final round at the King’s place.
And with under three weeks until the Masters at Augusta National, those who scored one of the tournament committee’s iconic invitations are looking to round into form.
This week offered a slight respite from the taxing layouts of the three previous Swing venues, and players pounced. Most notably, the seemingly forgotten member of golf’s Big Three in recent months, Day leapt to the fore with a superb 66-65 start.
Read on to see who joins Day as a winner this week...and who doesn’t.
Winner: Jason Day
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Your wire-to-wire Arnold Palmer Invitational winner certainly made things interesting on Sunday, didn’t he?
Jason Day needed a 17th-hole birdie and a steely sand save at the final hole to topple Kevin Chappell by a stroke. And of course, the late-tournament impotency of Troy Merritt and Henrik Stenson helped his case, as did world No. 8 Justin Rose’s failure to show up on Sunday.
Day started off his AP Invitational-winning campaign with a tidy 66, followed by a second-round 65. Weekend hang-in-there rounds of 70 were good enough for the Australian to take home his first trophy since the BMW Championship in September and ought to give him both momentum and confidence (for what those perishable quantities are worth) heading into Augusta in a few weeks' time.
Loser: 1st- and 3rd-Round Rory McIlroy
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Rory McIlroy was, in some ways, a winner this week, as the next slide details. The Ulsterman's opening-round 75, and his duplication of the same score in the third round landed him a 27th-place finish.
McIlroy struggled with both his driving and putting in those rounds, carding five double bogeys during those two days of work. If you're scoring at home, that's five holes that earned him a 12-over tally. It's tough to bounce back from a big-number bonanza like that.
With just one event left on his schedule (next week’s Dell Match Play) before the Masters, the world No. 1 would like to be firing on all cylinders, rather than showcasing flashes of brilliance amid head-scratching rounds.
Winner: 2nd- and 4th-Round Rory McIlroy
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As poor as McIlroy’s play was in his opening and third rounds, his second and fourth rounds were truly superb. As mentioned, the Ulsterman carded rounds of 67, 65 for his second- and fourth-round efforts, respectively.
McIlroy made two eagles, 11 birdies and just one bogey in the two rounds (and a double bogey as well). For his final round, the 26-year-old hit an incredible 13 of 14 fairways, finding 12 of 18 greens in regulation. He picked up more than four strokes on the field from tee to green in the fourth round, and more than two for the second round.
He was a combined 12 under par for the second and fourth rounds, which would have won the tournament with halfway decent efforts in the other two rounds.
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Loser: Henrik Stenson
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It seems like the three-wood-loving Swede has been close more than anyone on the PGA Tour in the past couple of years, doesn’t it? Henrik Stenson, the 2013 FedEx Cup champion, hasn’t won since the Tour Championship in 2013.
He finished fourth four times in 2014-2015, and thanks to bogeys on two of his final five holes Sunday, the 39-year-old came up short again at Bay Hill.
Stenson tore up Bay Hill’s back nine Saturday, closing with a 31 to card a third-round 70 that left him two strokes behind Jason Day entering the final round. However, thanks to his back-nine stall out, the Scandinavian finished tied for third.
Winner: The Sick Golfer
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Following his third-round 67, Kevin Chappell paraphrased the much-quoted aphorism extolling the often surprisingly good play of players who are under the weather: Beware of the sick golfer.
Chappell picked up a bug from his son, Wyatt, and seemed to have a pretty healthy (or unhealthy, as the case may be) cold for his four-day effort at Bay Hill.
The ailment didn’t stop the California native from going 68, 68, 67, 69 to finish at 16 under par at the King’s venue in Orlando. It was only Jason Day’s clutch-par save at the last that saw Chappell come up a stroke short.
For the world No. 129 golfer, however, the second-place finish is a win.
Loser: Your Prediction for How Troy Merritt Would Play
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Remember last year when Troy Merritt won the Quicken Loans National in August after five missed cuts in a row? And following the win, the Iowa native finished outside the top 50 in four of his final five starts.
In other words, he seems to dwell underground, poke his head out for a moment in the sun and then return to the subterranean realm.
Entering the Arnold Palmer Invitational had missed five of his last six cuts. Alternatively, based on his pre-Quicken Loans National performance last year, he was poised for a brilliant performance. Realistically, though, who could have expected he'd play well?
All Merritt did at Arnie’s place was fire rounds of 67, 69, 67 and then rattle off five-straight birdies on the back nine to seize a share of the lead Sunday before coming up just short. Likely not what most had seen in their crystal balls.
Winners: A Pair of Amateurs
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A pair of standout amateurs were awarded spots in Arnold Palmer's invite-only field, and both players availed themselves quite nicely.
Bryson DeChambeau, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, fired three-straight rounds of even-par golf before closing with an inspired six-under 66 Sunday to finish tied for 27th.
Stanford's Maverick McNealy, for his part, finished at three under, tied for 46th.
Whenever you make the cut as an amatuer—especially at a high-profile event with a relatively strong field—you're a winner in this ranking.
Loser: Ian Poulter
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In the same week that it was revealed that his efforts to alert a heckler's boss on Twitter of an employee's badgering seemingly led to that employee's termination (per Golf Channel), Ian Poulter had a flare-up of golf's most dreaded disease: The Shanks.
"Pure 16 holes today. some progress... But 18 holes count. 2 lovely shanks led to 2 double bogeys. Real shame," Poulter tweeted after his opening round, in which he fired off a pair of hosel rockets.
Still, the Englishman hung around, finishing tied for 46th at three under.
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