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ORLANDO FL

As you can clearly see, the King and I have history. For five years, I worked across the lake from Bay Hill at Isleworth Country Club. I have watched and played Bay Hill many times. There's a reason why Palmer's Paradise in Orlando is one of the most predictive courses on the PGA TOUR, and it has every bit to do with Dick Wilson's original design. I'm not going to break down every single detail over a couple thousand words, but know this... I've taken every ounce of that Orlando experience and put it into this week's narrative. The Arnold Palmer Invitational is one of the most storied tournaments on the modern PGA TOUR. To win the King's red cardigan is a badge of honor almost as big as the crest on the winner's sweater. A return to Orlando is a welcome opportunity. The town, Mr. Palmer, and this facility have played a significant role in the development of my professional career. What better way to celebrate a homecoming than with back-to-back winning weeks!

We have 72 players in the field. Much like Tiger's Genesis Invitational, there is a 36-hole cut. The top 50 and ties, and anyone within 10 strokes of the lead, will play the weekend vying for $20 million. Four million for first, it's time to make the One and Done pick really count. Everyone in the OWGR top 10 is playing alongside 23 of the top 25. Only Patrick Reed (18) and Tyrell Hatton (24) are sitting this out. I have spent countless hours playing and watching this tournament. What I have learned is that Bay Hill is a very predictable golf course. Why? Seven holes basically repeat themselves throughout the layout. For example, we start with a sharp dogleg on number one. There's a sharp dogleg on 10. Three plays as a dogleg left around water, and four is a long, straight uphill par 5. Eleven is a dogleg left around water, and 12 is a straight uphill par 5. This happens again and again throughout the routing. Here is the important point. If you have the skill set to handle a few holes at Bay Hill, you can basically play the entire course very well.

Arnold Palmer Invitational starts in...

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The Hill

The Champion (Front 9) and Challenger (Back 9) come together to create one of the toughest tests on the PGA TOUR. Listed at a par 72 - 7,466 yards, not many courses with four Par 5's curtail scoring as much as this venue. Over the last five years, the average winner's score is just 10.2 under par. Over the last ten, 11.3 under par. Since the fields were elevated to signature status in 2023, the average winning score is a little higher at 11.7 under par. What makes it tough? Five of the 10 par 4s measure over 450 yards. Arnie's layout has the longest set of par 3s on TOUR. There's dense, three-inch overseeded Rye-grass rough. On-site, the entire setup looks major championship-ready. Let me be clear, the story this week will be the firmness of the turf. The ball is bouncing! When you get the Bay Hill bounce, you had better bring your short game. Eighty-four bunkers and the combination of closely-mown areas and ridiculous rough around these putting surfaces will make saving strokes with your short game a leaderboard priority.

The greens are fairly large at Bay Hill, measuring 7,500 yards on average. Watching the players practice, they will NOT play that big. Players must hit specific landing targets, or they will be chipping all day. Over 45% of approach shots are played from 175 yards or longer (30% over 200 yards). The Hill is one of my favorite easy versus difficult scorecards. The volatility back and forth between the two leaderboard directions makes for an incredible championship setting. Seven holes have a birdie rate over 15%. The four par 5s? They average a 38% birdie rate while the remaining 14 holes average 12%. Eleven holes have a bogey rate over 15%, and all four par 3s will play over par for the week. The microcosm of this roller coaster comes on holes 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Thirteen is a short, attackable par 4, 14 is a brutal uphill par 3, 15 is a long, severe par 4 with a tabletop green complex. Launch a drive down the par 5 sixteenth, and you are guaranteed a birdie. Your reward is the toughest par 3 on the golf course. Sixteen of the red sweater winners since 2000 are major champions. Since eight of those belong to Tiger Woods, he's probably the best archetype we can study on what it takes to win.

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How to win?

Not many courses have a field average under 60% for hitting fairways AND GIRs. Are you still trying to figure out why Tiger Woods won here eight times, and how Scottie currently dominates? They both possess the complete package of skills needed to beat Bay Hill. The blueprint to defeating the best players in the world at Bay Hill is proven by the list of past champions. Scoring at API comes down to great long iron play, a solid short game, and consistent Bermudagrass putting. I believe Tiger dropped a couple of key putts on the eighteenth hole. Arnold Palmer always wanted to host a US Open at his home course. Since the event is played in June, that wasn't going to happen in Central Florida. The King didn't get discouraged, and in 2009, Mr. Palmer decided to make changes and create his own major championship in early March (sorry PLAYERS). Any event that hosts 23 of the top 25 players in the world and the winner is the only one who gets to double-digits under par, that's a championship test.

Walking the grounds, there are a couple of observations I can add to what the other handicappers are writing about from home. Why is long iron acumen so important on the Champion and Challenger nines? The best long iron players can stop the ball more quickly than their competitors. Bay Hill is an absolute brick right now. High launch is mandatory from long range. I have tipped the data scales very heavily toward the best long iron artists. I know that means Scottie, Rory, Collin, etc. will pop up, but who else? Tyrell Hatton, Bryson, and Frankie Molinari have all won here in the last six years. Remember Marc Leishman in majors? Of course you do, and his long iron game was the reason why. The recent top 10s validate this skill a step further.

The ryegrass overseed is aggressive. If you lack ball speed, I seriously don't know how you plan to contend if you don't make 85+ feet of putts per round. The best iron players from long range also have the most speed at impact. These men have a slight chance of getting the ball on the green surface from off the fairway. Bay Hill carries almost a half-stroke penalty for missing the short grass (that's high!). Those green surfaces are definitely showing the Bay Hill Bounce! The reaction of an approach on these rock-hard green surfaces is eye and ear-catching; you can hear the ball hit the surface. Balls will be running across these greens. There won't be many smiling players during Smylie's happy hour on Friday. Practice rounds and the Pro-Am today will be slow based on the firm conditions. It's really tough to get around this place.

Bay Hill has always been an important Bermudagrass putting venue. In recent years, the impact of strokes gained putting has decreased, and the value of approach and short game has increased. Understanding the evolution of these putting surfaces, it all makes sense. I can remember putting these greens 20 years ago, and they were extremely grainy. The new strand of TifEagle Bermuda they are using is so smooth at this height that the grain loses some of its effect until very late in the day. With a limited field, there are very few players who are competing at that time. Looking at the greens, they are practically purple. When you see that sheen, look out. Thankfully, Dick Wilson kept these surfaces pretty sane. I'm favoring Florida flatstick history at The Hill, and not just Bermudagrass putting. Bay Hill is one of those places where players make about the TOUR average when they roll it from outside 5'.

The King's Court is definitely a par 4 test. Scoring on the 4s will allow you to climb the leaderboards at Bay Hill. Pay attention to this next insight. Everyone is going to model for par 5 scoring, and that's great, but with a very strong signature field competing, you're going to need a way to separate, and par 5s are the floor and not the ceiling. Past champions gain more strokes against the field on the 3s than the 5s. With an average winning score of about 10 under par, two-thirds of your birdies are going to come from the 5s. That will be the same for every player; how will you distance yourself from the field? Bay Hill hosts one of the most difficult sets of par 3s on TOUR, major or otherwise. The three toughest holes this week relative to par are 2, 17, and 14 - all par 3s. Play those four holes even par for the week, and you will 100% gain strokes on the field.

Twenty sub-par scores, that is what the last 10 winners have averaged when they won. The winning score over the last decade is 12 under par. Bogey avoidance is another factor we cannot forget. I would even go one step further and call it "major" bogey avoidance. This course is going to be a brute and will require a savvy short game to save par and score on the par 5s. There are 55 greenside bunkers at Bay Hill. Bunker play has always been an influence on the final leaderboard. When I took a closer look at the green surrounds, I noticed one little detail. The rough is longer the closer you get to the hole. Increasing the difficulty around the green complexes will also cause around the green acumen to impact a player's final score. It sounds redundant at this point, but Bay Hill is a great big well-rounded test.

Take that last point and play it back in your head. If there's more pressure on short game, then you need to hit more GIRs. Well, those are rock hard, and you cannot hold them from the rough. So, don't drive it in the rough, and you can control launch and spin from the fairway. Sounds simple, right? Something tells me the best in the world won't find it that straightforward. There have been seven events on TOUR in 2026. RTL has picked the runner-up in four of the last six. Let's back up that LPGA win from Sunday with a signature trophy and get it done again!

Outright Winners - Arnold Palmer Invitational

Blue and Green

Hannah Green made it more interesting than it needed to be, but a couple of loose bogeys on 17 and 18 did not result in another runner-up finish for RTL. The sand-belt queen, Green, registered our first win of the year and provided us with ample amounts of momentum heading into the final stop of the LPGA’s early-season Asia tour. The Blue Bay LPGA is a relatively new event on the calendar. We do have a larger field than the Honda and the HSBC, but it’s still not a full-field event. We will see a 36-hole cut to the top 65 and ties, but most LPGA players are not traveling to China for one start. Just imagine being an LPGA Q-School Qualifier. The first FOUR events of the season have been off the event calendar. One in Orlando, and three in Southeast Asia. By the time you get a chance to play in The Fortinet Founders Cup, it will have been 100 days! Even Nelly Korda has played three competitive rounds in almost five months. I know Craig Kessler (and team) have their hands full with a multitude of tasks, but they have to make this schedule more player and fan-friendly. Our last week of Wednesday night golf. Get those weekend wagers in on time!

Island hopping

From Thailand to Singapore, and now off the coast of Vietnam to the Jian Lake Golf Course in China. About as far from the center of mainland China as one can get, the course is situated in the southeast corner on a resort island. The Jian Lake Blue Bay course was built in 2012. Designed to host championship golf, the par 72 layout covers 6,712 yards. The Blue Bay first came to Jian Lake in 2014. Our defending champion is Japan’s Rio Takeda. The first of six different winners from Japan on tour in 2025, she opened the floodgates and showed her fellow countrywomen what was possible.

The average winning score over the two lives of this event (there was a four year break due to covid) is 10.5 under par. Past champions include major winners Sei Young Kim, Shanshan Feng, and Minjee Lee. Overall, it is a really tough test of golf. Twelve holes have water in play, and the course is covered in bunkers. I counted 110 in my research, but the number does not convey how much sand is really on the golf course. If you miss the green grass, I guarantee you are either in water or sand. Four of the previous five tournaments before Takeda were won by a single stroke. It reminds me of TPC Sawgrass or Scottsdale and the amount of scoring entertainment it can provide, especially down the closing stretch. Looking back at the results, you can tell this event has a major championship feel. The course has a stereotypical collection of four par 3s (average length 172 yards), four par 5s (average length 537 yards), and 10 par 4s (average length 387 yards). Only four of the par 4s measure over 400 yards, and the par 5s are quite scorable.

How to win?

Jian Lake is the toughest test these women will see on this spring Asia tour. That may be why it annually gives us the weakest field on this mini-Asia swing. In a field of 108 players, we have 10 women ranked inside the top 50 in the world rankings. Take it a step further, there are 83 LPGA players in the field, along with 20 from the CGA (China) and five sponsors’ exemptions.

Manufactured from dirt and a whole lot of sand, it is very much as if AI created a tournament course. Whether you like the design or not, an average winning score of right around 10 under par is a worthy test for some of the world’s best women. What little rain that has fallen will not impact the playing surfaces. Speaking of the putting variety, for the first time this year, we won't be playing on Bermudagrass. The greens are covered in Platinum Paspalum. The rest of the course is Seaside Paspalum across the rough, fairways, collars, etc. You know how the ball rolls/plays on that sticky, spongy surface. It makes the green play a little easier and the putting surfaces slower. There isn't much rough surrounding the fairways, so when you do land on green turf off the tee, players will get an above-average lie.

Jian Lake requires that you keep your ball out of trouble. Strokes gained T2G (SG: T2G) and strokes gained scoring (SG: Scoring) are two great measures for who has placed their ball in position for the first three events of the LPGA season. Thirteen of the 14 tee shots bend, and all of them present either sand or water off the tee. The card says 6,700+, but two of the par 4s offer options and can be shortened and played as drivable holes. We also have four medium-length par-5s. The most popular approach range is 150-175 yards. A little on the longer side, the elite players can differentiate themselves easily from the field quite quickly. Focusing on approach play is a vital key, and with the early-season venues all favoring the iron game, we have a great idea of who is leading in proximity to the hole. To further validate this point, Takeda gained a stroke more than the second-best approach player with her irons en route to winning.

With all of the sand, scrambling, and sand play makes a ton of sense. Picking outrights is always like splitting hairs. A couple of key up and downs in the middle of the round will mean the difference between first and second, or third place. Holes five through eight are a great example of what this course can challenge you with. Two tough par 4s, then a medium-length 3, followed by a reachable par 5. All four have water in play and can easily allow a sub-par score or create complete scorecard havoc. The blend of the two scoring scenarios is very similar to last week, just a little tougher across the entire scorecard. Tough tee shots also await these women. I mentioned the fairways move a bunch, but they are also narrower than the LPGA average.

When you consider all of the trouble off the tee Jian Lake presents, having players who routinely hit the fairway and possess length gives us an advantage. If you have to choose one trait, it is accuracy. A couple of these par 4s can be significantly shortened. Not as many as the Sentosa Golf Club last week, but enough to give these players a well-rounded par 4 test. I love a layout that presents multiple versions of one par type. The par 3s average 177 yards and present a similar test across all 18-holes. The 4s, however, are fun at Jian Lake. From the 425-yard fifth guarded by water to the 297-yard fifeenth, players must perform using multiple skills to score. Bailey Tardy was eight under on the 4s two years ago. Looking for a place where players can differentiate? It is par 4 land.

Much like the men, the LPGA does not see paspalum grass often. Specific players will pop this week due to their affinity to figure out slower tournament conditions. I generally do not favor putting on weeks like this outside of historic leaderboards. I’ve searched through the recent ones to develop a short list of good platinum performers. Paspalum doesn’t seem to be THE reason a player wins, but it does give us an edge when it comes down to knowing who can handle the slow surfaces. Combined with approach acumen and accuracy off the tee, you will find names start to repeat year after year on the leaderboard’s top 10s.

Balance your bogey avoidance everywhere with sub-par scoring on the par 5s, and you'll be in the conversation come Sunday afternoon in China. For us, back-to-back celebratory brunches would be nice as we prepare for the final round of the API. I’m a big fan of this tournament. I wish the field were deeper, and the elite players would compete. Blue Bay adds a bit of swagger to an otherwise rainy and rather mundane winter Asia run. Keep a close eye on those leaderboards, as double bogey trouble does lurk around almost every corner. Think it was tough for Hannah Green to close out the Tanjong Course? Jian Lake is more anxious and far more entertaining.

Outright Winners - Blue Bay LPGA

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