BlogArnold Palmer Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Hard to believe that there are 18 events in the books already in this 2015 season.  Can’t complain over the winners, we have seen some vets like Bubba Watson, Ryan Moore, Jimmy Walker, Bill Haas, Brandt Snedeker, Padraig Harrington and Dustin Johnson win.  On the other side, lots of talented young players like Sang Moon Bae, Patrick Reed, Brooks Koepka, Jason Day, James Hahan and now Jordan Spieth.  His victory at Valspar was pretty exciting and already we can possibly see players like Spieth and Reed go mano-a-mano.  Not many know it but this was the second time Reed and Spieth have faced off in overtime, in 2013 Reed beat Spieth in a playoff at the Wyndham Championship.  This list of champions for this year is pretty good and is created some buzz.  Of course we all miss the old Tiger Woods in his heyday and hope he will return, just like in basketball with Michael Jordan there is nobody that can replace them.

Talking about Tiger 

A lot of debate on if Woods is going to make it to the Masters.  His manager says he is working very hard on his game, he is also been following his girlfriend Lindsey Vonn around in spots that they don’t play golf this time of year.  So it’s anyones guess on Tiger’s timetable.  Ego wise you know he wants to play at the Masters, but I have to think that if his game isn’t back to normal he won’t play.  Not being privy to Tiger’s practice routine I have to think that his game can’t be perfect in three weeks and we won’t see him again until the Players.  Tiger has fooled us before so if he does play at Augusta, that wouldn’t surprise me either.  One thing that all of us don’t want to see is his game in the shape it was in at Phoenix and San Diego.  If that happens at Augusta it will be a long time before we see Tiger on a course again.

Things you need to know about the Arnold Palmer Invitational

According to the PGA Tour, this will be the 50th Arnold Palmer Invitational, which got its start in 1966 as the Florida Citrus Open.  But if you look around there is no big splash, you can’t find anywhere in any of the material that the tournament puts out anything raving about it’s 50th anniversary.

There is a good reason for that.

If you ask Arnold Palmer, he will tell you that this is the 37th Bay Hill Invitational.  The actual event did start in 1966 as the Florida Citrus Open and it was barely surviving when Arnold Palmer and his associates took over in 1978.  They gave new life into the event by moving it to Bay Hill in 1979 and talking the elite of the PGA Tour to include Bay Hill onto their schedules.  In the 36 years since it changed to the Bay Hill Club, the tournament has elevated to a level that it’s considered one of the premier stops on tour, as voted by the players.

Course information:

Bay Hill Club & Lodge

• Orlando, Fl.
• 7,419 yards     Par 36-36–72
• Course has a 73.9 rating and slope rating of 136 fron the championship tees. The course is part of a resort and is open to those that stay at the course and it’s members.
• The average green size at Bay Hill is 6,500 square feet, which is a little over the average on the PGA Tour.  The course has 103 bunkers and water comes into play on nine of the 18 holes.
• Last year Bay Hill was the 16th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 72.473 average, which is close to a half a shot over par.
• In 2013 the Bay Hill was the 12th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 72.928 average playing .928 stroke over par.
• The course was originally designed and built by Dick Wilson and Joe Lee in 1960.
• It’s funny how Arnold Palmer got associated with it. In the early 1960s when Bay Hill was first opened, Palmer and Jack Nicklaus played an exhibition tournament at the course and the King was so attracted to Bay Hill that he got together a group of investors and leased the club with an option to buy it.  In January of 1976, the group bought the course and ever since Palmer spends most of the winter in a condo behind the course.  Palmer loves to tinker with the course. Since Palmer left the Champions tour and had more time on his hands around 2000, he has spent a lot of time making changes, probably the biggest coming in 2007 when he took the par 5, 4th and 16th holes and convert them into par 4s, thus reducing the par of the course to 70.  That didn’t last long a Palmer changed his mind again in 2010 and went back to a par 72.
• Until about two years ago Palmer would always tinker with something on the course, making small changes here and there, but there hasn’t been any changes in three years now.  Despite Palmer not tinkering with the course anymore there is always one thing that is consisted each year and that is the rough which is very high and helps bring scores up each year.  One thing that we can see a bit of a trend on, scores have been high with the winners the last three years being at 13 under par.  So maybe the fact that Palmer and the tournament aren’t making changes means that scoring could be going down.  Oh there have been some subtle changes to the course this year.  All of the bunkers have been upgraded with new G-Angle sand and they have been on an aggressive tree cutting program, taking out limbs that had grown into the line of play.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the Arnold Palmer Invitational:

Key stat for the winner:

It’s said that ball-striking is becoming a dinosaur on the PGA Tour, but that isn’t the case at Bay Hill in which hitting lots of greens is important. Between 1997 and 2008 there wasn’t a winner that didn’t finish in the top-20 of greens hit for the week.  In 2009 Tiger Woods changed that when he finished T50th, but since then four of the last five winners were in the top-20.

Here is a look at the winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational that finished in the top-five in greens hit:

Year – Winner                  Greens hit – ranked    Rank of field comparing             # of those in top-ten finished 

                                                                             to other courses that year                   in top-ten in Greens hit

2014 – Matt Every                 52 of 72 – T7th                             23rd                                                    4

2013 – Tiger Woods             46 of 72 – T34th                           16th                                                     3

2012 – Tiger Woods               57 of 72 – 1st                              20th                                                     4

2011 – Martin Laird              49 of 72 – T20th                           15th                                                      3

2010 – Ernie Els                    50 of 72 – T9th                             9th                                                       5

2009 – Tiger Woods             39 of 72 – T50th                            1st                                                        4

2008 – Tiger Woods             50 of 72 – T14th                            17th                                                      6

2007 – Vijay Singh                52 of 72 – 2nd                              10th                                                       6

other top winners in the top-five

2005 – Kenny Perry              57 of 72 – 1st                               18th                                                       6

2003 – Tiger Woods              56 of 72 – 1st                              12th                                                        5

2001 – Tiger Woods              51 of 72 – T5th                             9th                                                         5

1997 – Phil Mickelson           61 of 72 – 1st                              28th                                                        5

Another key stat:

• Now it’s easy to point out how the winners have been in greens hit but what has the trend been for everyone in the field?  The trend is that more folks are hitting more greens.  In 2009 Bay Hill had the hardest greens to hit.  In a way wind helped, the weekend saw high winds with gust up to 30 mph, but only 55.02 of the greens were hit that year.  The next year it jumped to 61.25% and was ranked 9th and the number has stayed about the same with it’s ranking going up, in 2011 it ranked 15th on the PGA Tour.  In 2012 it climbed to 20th and then 16th in 2013.  Last year it ranked 23rd and more players hit more greens with the average going up again to 64.00%.

The one key stat that shows what it takes to win:

• “Proximity to hole” is a stat that measures how close to the hole you hit it from the fairway.  The last five years Bay Hill has ranked in the top-ten on the PGA Tour.  Since this is a shot-link stat that isn’t measured in the majors, you only find this in non-major courses.  The better the ranking means that it’s harder to get the ball close to the hole.  Last year players from the fairway got the ball to 37 feet, 8 inches of the hole, ranking 8th.  The year before it ranked 3rd as players averaged 38’8″.  So this means that getting the ball close is hard at Bay Hill.
• Making Bay Hill even tougher is when players hit drives in the rough.  In looking at the stat “Rough Proximity”, over the last five years it ranked 3rd last year, 1st in 2013, 6th in 2012, 3rd in 2011 and 2nd in 2010.  So what does this mean?  That the rough is really hard to deal with and that there is a penalty for hitting drives into the rough because it’s hard to get your ball close to the hole.  So in looking for a player that does well at Bay Hill you want to find one that not only hits lot’s of greens and close to the hole, but also players that can handle rough by getting the ball closer to the holes than others.  So here are the results of two key stats from 2015, first “Proximity to Hole” and then ‘Rough Proximity”

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Only three weeks before the Masters, for many this is there last go before the Masters.  Right now the Masters field is just about set, for those not in the field they will have to either win at Bay Hill, Valero and Houston.  The other way is to be in the top-50 of the world rankings after the Valero Texas Open.  For six players it’s going to be a wild scramble to make sure they are in the top-50 so that they get one of the last Masters invites.  Here are those on the bubble, #46 – Paul Casey, 51 – Marc Warren, 52 – Harris English, 53 – Alexander Levy, 58 – Andy Sullivan, 62 – Tommy Fleetwood, 63 – Graham Delaet, #64 – Francesco Molinari and #65 – Marcel Siem. Casey, Levy, English, Delaet and Molinari are playing this week.
• Kenny Perry had a perfect combination of being ranked fourth in both driving distance and accuracy in 2005.  Look for accuracy to once again prevail and look for another player like Perry that combines straight driving with a bit of length.  So how do we determine a player like this?  Look at the total driving stat which combines but distance rank and accuracy rank to help determine your winner.
• Unimportant stat: In eight of the last 15 years Tiger Woods has been the winner. So what does that mean?  In many tournaments, experience seems to be important, but not at Bay Hill.   Since 1979, 12 of the winners either became first-time winners or had only won once before, just like Matt Every winning for the first time at Bay Hill in 2014, Martin Laird in 2011, Rod Pampling in 2006 and Chad Campbell in 2004.  But on the other side of the coin, the tournament has had some great players winning like Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Ben Crenshaw, Fred Couples, Tom Kite, Paul Azinger, Payne Stewart, Fuzzy Zoeller and  Tiger Woods.
• In the past, players that drove it long never seemed to win, but that trend has changed.  Just look at the last 14 winners: Phil Mickelson in ’97, Ernie Els in ’98, Tim Herron in ’99 and Tiger in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2012 & 2013. Chad Campbell in 2004, Vijay Singh in 2007 and Ernie again in 2010. They all can hit the ball a long way.
• Birdies and patience are important at Bay Hill. On most courses the norm is making lots of birdies to keep pace, but at Bay Hill pars are just as important.
• One thing for certain is that the odds are quite good that the winner will be from either Florida and the Orlando area.  Of the 120 in the field this week, 31 live in Florida with 14 having ties in the Orlando area.
• Weather has been pretty good the last couple of days in Florida and looking at the long range forecast it shows that things will be great on Friday and Saturday, but rain on Thursday and really heavy rain on Sunday.  But the good news for the players, not much wind.
• So it will be a perfect week for scoring, but with the rough being high, rains may make the rough impossible.  Accuracy could be important this week.