– A guy who has never felt comfortable at Bay Hill, quite the opposite. Another who was suffering from serious back pain before going out to play. And a third who didn’t confirm his entry into the tournament until Monday… Shane Lowry, Hideki Matsuyama and Justin Lower. That’s how the trio that currently leads the Arnold Palmer Invitational after the first round is or was doing. Let’s go in parts.
Shane Lowry, the sole leader after signing a 66, had never shot under 70 on this course in his four previous participations in the tournament. Four participations in which, be careful, he missed three cuts (2015, 2018 and 2019) and got a meagre 67th place (2023) after signing an 80 on Saturday… His average score on this course until yesterday was 73.4 strokes, so at the start of this edition he has played more than seven strokes below his ‘handicap’ at Bay Hill. It is true that Lowry has arrived at the event in good form, but it is also true that even the player himself was somewhat surprised. He was smiling at the end: “Golf is fun… I have suffered a lot on this course over the years and today I went out with very low expectations. Maybe I needed a result like this to have the confidence to play my game here”. Lowry, by the way, is playing this week thanks to an invitation from the main sponsor, Mastercard.
When explaining that stretch of four holes that he managed with a partial of five under (three birdies and an eagle between holes 10 and 13), the basis of his leadership, he did so in a fun way: “when something like this happens to you it seems that everything is very simple, that the course is simple, but then at Bay Hill, suddenly everything starts to go in the other direction and you feel like you will never be able to make a par again”.
Hideki Matsuyama finished the round with a slightly numb leg due to some back pain that had him very worried just before going out to play. Again the issue of low expectations in play… Because it is obvious that in this situation you don’t go out with the idea of sweeping, but simply go stroke by stroke, to see what happens. By the way, the Japanese hit the ball twice unintentionally on hole 15 when making a faulty chip (neither the action has a penalty, nor is the action counted as two strokes, but as one), but immediately afterwards he holed for eagle on 16 with another chip. This man doesn’t have many problems to reset…
As for Justin Lower, he had to wait until the very end of the Cognizant, last week’s tournament that ended on Monday and where he missed the cut, to find out if he got into the Arnold Palmer or not, making good his third place in Mexico two weeks ago… Lower admits that it was a tense wait, but it is clear that the little suffering was worth it.
– Viktor Hovland (-1) has played little in 2024 and has not even peeked at the top positions. At the start of this week, at Bay Hill, an even worse version appeared, as he signed three consecutive bogeys on holes 1, 2 and 3… However, the Viktor of the last months of 2023, the winner of the Fedex Cup, emerged with a partial of four under in fifteen holes, even though he finished with a bogey on 18. He did it, first, relying on a killer putt, sinking pure and pure, but also taking those powerful irons for a walk.
– And back to the same old story. Scheffler and the putt. It’s not that he did horribly bad on the greens of Bay Hill yesterday, but most did better than him. However, he was again the second best in the green in regulation statistic and the best in SG:Off the Tee. Something tells us that he will end up winning this battle with himself and that we have a world Number One for a long time…
