2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational: Tournament preview and picks
The PGA Tour heads to Arnie’s place this week for the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
It’s one of the most iconic events on the golfing calendar, The Arnold Palmer Invitational and Bay Hill Club and Lodge mark the second stop as part of the PGA’s Florida swing.
This year the event has the unfortunate spot of sitting between last week’s World Golf Championship event and next week’s PLAYERS Championship, this has resulted in many of golf’s biggest names taking the opportunity to rest this week before making the trip to TPC Sawgrass in a week’s time.
Last week’s first World Golf Championship of 2021 certainly delivered and the event that was hosted at The Concession for the first time received glowing praise from both players and fans alike. Colin Morikawa showed the resolve he exhibited at the PGA Championship last year and in doing so won his first WGC event, adding to a growing and impressive resume in the young player’s career thus far.
Viktor Hovland made it two week’s in a row for us now having a Sunday chaser come close only to fall just short at the end, and in truth who knows how things would have turned out had he not taken an 8 on the PAR 4 9th during his second round.
Let’s move on and see if we can find a winner this week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational
The event that pays tribute to the King of Golf, Arnold Palmer, takes center stage this week and is one of the few events on the golfing calendar with invitational status.
Bay Hill Club and Lodge was originally designed by Dick Wilson before Arnold Palmer purchased the land and shaped it into what it has become. The course has been a mainstay on the PGA tour since 1979 and it has become one of the PGA’s most iconic events.
The PAR 72 design is traditionally one of the longest on tour and much like last week will play at well over 7,400 yards. While length is always an advantage the course really places a strong emphasis on ball striking and approach play. Larger than average fairways and fast Bermuda greens feature but one of the real perks of this course is the water and surrounding lake that comes into play on over half of Bay Hill’s 18 holes.
Scores can be anywhere from the high teens to low single digits depending on the weather and wind that can make things really difficult as was the case last year when Tyrrell Hatton won at four under par.
As mentioned previously this week’s 123 man field is a good deal weaker than has typically been seen at this event before, though it still includes three of the World’s top ten ranked players per the Official World Golf Ranking in Tyrrell Hatton, Rory Mcllroy, and Patrick Reed.
Viktor Hovland, Bryson DeChambeau, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Sungjae Im, Paul Casey, Jason Day, and Tommy Fleetwood, are several others scheduled to tee it up this week.
The field often has a real international flavor about it as players make final preparations for next week’s PLAYERS Championship and the Masters next month. In fact, the Arnold Palmer Invitational has seen a non-American winner in every year since 2015 when Matt Every won at Bay Hill.
Past Winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational
2020: Tyrrell Hatton (-4)
2019: Francesco Molinari (-12)
2018: Rory Mcllroy (-18)
2017: Marc Leishman (-11)
2016: Jason Day (-17)
Let’s take a look at who is amongst the favorites to win this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.