BlogArnold Palmer Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Have to think that the rescheduling of the WGC-Dell World Match Play to the week after the Palmer will come up.  With the change it forced a lot of players to look at their schedule and make changes.  Marquee names like Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson has taken this week off.  With Tiger not playing due to his surgery, the field is not as stellar as past years.

The PGA Tour has become a fabulous success not because of all the great tournaments, but the fact that all of the tournaments have done well.  But events like last week’s Valspar, the Nelson, Colonial, Travelers and the Canadian Open have felt the pain of being close to other events that marquee names have to play in, so it will be interesting how the Palmer will be about it.  Over the years the Tour has worked with most of these events to try and place them in the position so they can do well, but just like this week for the Palmer they just have to stick it out and hope that changes happen.

Another sad note is with Arnold Palmer.  This tournament and course has been his pride and joy since he bought Bay Hill in the 60s and he has had a hands on approach to running it.  Since Palmer fell over a year ago he has slowed down a lot.  He use to play golf every day, he no longer plays and the last time he hit a shot was at the Masters last April.  He will be at Bay Hill but just not to the level of past years.  I would say he does what Byron Nelson use to do at his tournament and greet players on Sunday when they finished.  Still he is the King and we treasure every moment we have with him.

Things you need to know about the Arnold Palmer Invitational:

According to the PGA Tour, this will be the 51st 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 51st 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 36th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 71.121 average, which is almost a shot under par.  Great weather was the reason for the low scores, you can see how hard the course has been over the years.
• In 2014 Bay Hill was the 16th hardest course on Tour playing to a 72.473 average, a half a shot over par.  So you can see the difference between 2014 and 1015 just about a shot and a half.
• 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 three 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 four 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 were high with the winners between 2012 and 2014 at 13 under par, but last year Matt Every was 19 under.
• Now Bay Hill did receive a face lift for this week’s event as all the greens on the course were re-grassed with Emerald Bermuda and will make the greens roll truer and faster.  The fairways and tees were also re-grassed with Celebration bermudagrass.  One last changed will see more closely mown areas around the green which means chipping and scrambling will be harder than past years.  In the Orlando Sentinel Edgar Thompson said that Graeme McDowell played the course on New Year’s eve and raved about the new grass and course conditions.

Here is a new feature we have, a look at key stats that are important for those playing at Bay Hill Resort:

This is based on the most important stats for Bay Hill Course, based on data from last years Arnold Palmer Invitational, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four catagories.
The scoring average of the field at Bay Hill in 2015 was 71.12, so with par being 72 that means the average score was three quarter of a shot under par, making Bay Hill the 36th hardest course to score on in 2015 (only 16 courses played easier). It’s also important to see how the weather played a factor, last year’s weather was near perfect with winds blowing between 5 and 10 mph. So with good weather it’s the big reason the course played a full shot easier than it did in previous years. So with no wind and perfect weather the course was very easy, something that probably won’t happen this year since the forcast isn’t good, specially for the weekend.

In looking at the stats for Bay Hill last year Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green, Proximity to Hole and Rough Proximity are important. Last we pick putting from 4 to 8 feet because last year it was 13th hardest of all courses on the PGA Tour

So how did the winner Matt Every become victorious last year? He lead in Par Breakers and birdies, which makes sense. He was 2nd in Greens in Regulation and Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green. Every was 3rd in Proximity to the hole and 7th in Putting Average

In our key stats Every ranked T-2nd in greens in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green, 3rd in Proximity to Hole and T-34th in Rough Proximity. In putting from 4 to 8 feet he ranked T-43rd.

*Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green: Stat is good barometer on overall play from drives to hitting into the greens. For years Bay Hill is always in the top-15, in 2010 it was T-4th

*Proximity to Hole: Average length that a player hits from the pin with shots from the fairway.

*Rough Proximity: Average length that a player hits from the pin with shots out of the rought

*Putting from 4 to 8 feet: No matter how good your game is, you have to make these putts in order to win. Last year Bay Hill ranked 13th hardest so it’s a hard stat for players on this course.

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.

For the rest of the players, hit this link:

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

Key stat for the winner:

A Bay Hill stat:

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 five of the last six 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

2015 – Matt Every               58 of 72 – 2nd                                  35th                                               3

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.  In 2014 it ranked 23rd and more players hit more greens with the average going up again to 64.00%.  With the lack of wind and great weather 2015 was a banner year for the players as they hit 68.41% making it the 35th highest on the PGA Tour.  Now with really poor weather predicated for the week, I see this stat going down and the greens harder to hit in 2016.

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 before last year Bay Hill has ranked in the top-ten on the PGA Tour.  In 2015 it was ranked T-11th.  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, 1 inch ranking T-11th while in 2014 it was 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 six years it ranked T-6th last year,  3rd in 2014, 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 2016, first “Proximity to Hole”  and then “Rough Proximity.”

Here are some more key items 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, Dell Match Play or Houston.  The other way is to be in the top-50 of the world rankings after the Dell Match play.  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, #51 – Jaco Van Zyl, 55 – Rafael Cabrera Bello, 56 – Thomas Pieters, 61 – Matt Jones, 64 – Marcus Fraser and #65 – Patton Kizzire. Those not in the Palmer field are Van Zyl, Cabrera Bello and Fraser.

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 16 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 (then winning for a second time in 2015), 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.
• 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, 32 live in Florida with 10 having ties in the Orlando area.
• Weather has been pretty good the last couple of days in Florida but the forecast is not very good for this week.  It’s going to be mostly cloudy on Thursday and Frida with winds between 10 to 15 MPH.  But the weekend will be very stormy, they are calling for 50% thunderstorms on Saturday and 80% on Sunday.  Of course forecasts, even at 80% could be wrong, look at the forecast they got at the Valspar for Sunday.  It was suppose to rain most of the day, but the rain didn’t show up until Sunday evening.  Still the weather has been short of miraculous during this whole Florida swing, so rain wouldn’t surprise me.