Arnold Palmer Invitational 2024 preview

 The PGA Tour succumbed to yet another 100/1+ winner this calendar year last week at the Cognizant Classic, this came in the form of Austin Eckroat, as he ball struck his way to victory by finishing 4^th in the field for Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 5^th for Strokes Gained: Approach and 1^st for Greens in Regulation where he hit over 80% of them!

It was a full place return for our 22/1 selection Cam Young in the blog last week to scrape some returns for us back. 35/1 Keith Mitchel was unfortunately 1 stroke off the places! Let’s hope for more this week!

Arnold Palmer Invitational 

Just the 69 players travel north up the East coast of America to Orlando where they will compete this week at Bay Hill Club & Lodge for the 4^th signature event of the year after it was advised before last season that the Tour were introducing several elevated events with an increased purse alongside the majors. If players thought they had it tough last week at PGA National, then their headache will continue for another week here at Bay Hill.

A wind affected tournament once more, where players will face agonizingly narrow fairways, thick rough and fast greens. Players have said it is the toughest of tests outside the Majors, you will see why when I go into the stats in a short while.

Bay Hill Club & Lodge – Champion/Challenger Course

 

-          Par 72, 7466 yards approx.

-          Originally designed by Dick Wilson, Arnold Palmer renovations in 2009

-          4 x Par 3s – ranging from 199-231 yards

-          10 x Par 4s – ranging from 390-480 yards

-          4 x Par 5s – ranging from 511-590 yards

-          Large but very fast Bermuda greens

-          Narrow Fairways

-          Brutally thick rough

A lot of the same that we saw last week at PGA National the Champion Course, whereby players will have a tricky time finding the fairways off the tee, but if they miss them, they will have to negotiate the penal and thick rough that is known for awful lies/flyer lies.

A tough start from the off on the first hole with a Par 4 of average length, trees all down the left-hand side, players will be forced to take anything but driver if they want to be safe from the tee to set up a lengthy second.

Players who have the game for a ‘bomb and gauge’ type of play can take driver at a number of these holes too cut of the angles but the fairways narrow the further up players go on most holes so they will have to rely on their scrambling from the rough just like Bryson Dechambeau did here spectacularly in 2021.

For most, the driver will not come out of the bag for a good 6/7 holes of the front 9 due to it being tree lined/not worth the risk, so players will have to be comfortable hitting smaller woods and irons from the tee in order to optimize chances.

Just like the second hole, there are 3 more 200+ yard Par 3s here around Bay Hill. They are usually a let up in pressure but this week the players will really feel it, with these holes forcing the shorter hitters to take woods off the tees and the bigger hitters will take longer irons they aren’t used to taking on Par 3s most weeks.

We see a tough set of ‘3 shot’ Par 5s usually on Tour, not here. The players will have to capitalize on the 4 Par 5s they have in front of them here as they present the best chance to get birdies/eagles on the card. With them all falling under 590 yards, they are all reachable (depending on the wind) for all players in the field.

Previous winners and their Performance Stats

2023 Winner – Kurt Kitayama -9

2022 Winner – Scottie Scheffler -5

2021 Winner – Bryson DeChambeau -11

2020 Winner – Tyrell Hatton -4

2019 Winner – Francesco Molinari -12

2018 Winner – Rory McIlroy -18

2017 Winner – Marc Leishman -11

Average stats for the past 5 winners – Average Score -11
18^th Strokes Gained: Off the Tee
7^th Strokes Gained: Tee2Green                 
15^th Greens in Regulation                            
7^th Strokes Gained: Approach                    
14^th Scrambling
12^th Putting Average

Starting with the stats I won’t be focusing on this week. Par 5 scoring on less that 600 yards. If your profession golfer isn’t coming here and scoring well on these Par 5s this week, then they should question themselves as at least 3 of them aren’t that testing. Might sound blunt, but it is true in my eyes.

Putting averages, I will not be looking at. As seen from 4/5 of the last winners here, they didn’t putt superbly to win, experience on fast Bermuda maybe is a side to look for but the emphasis is about finding the green first in regulation to force that chance.

Let’s move onto what we will be looking for when creating our card this week then;

-          Off the Tee/Total driving

-          Greena in Regulation – 6/7 winners here all ranked top 10 for the stat

-          Scrambling – 5/7 winners here all ranked top 10

-          Good experience here for most tips

-          Bogey Avoidance

-          Par 3 200+ yards efficiency

A good drive will put players in the right positions to attack the greens, hitting the greens in regulation, avoiding mistakes where possible with their scrambling game along the way and taking care of the 4 tough Par 3s will be the recipe for a good week here around Bay Hill, simple right?... surely.

 

Selections

5 each way picks for readers this week! Good luck all and let’s hope we can continue the good form! All picks taken with 8 places, 1pt each way as always, unless stated in brackets. You will notice there are 4 guys from the top of the market, being a signature event, most of the top-20 in the world rankings have committed this week, so I think we need a high class card to compete!

Patrick Cantlay 14/1
Ludvig Aberg 16/1
Jordan Speith 20/1
Matthew Fitzpatrick 25/1
Chris Kirk 45/1