– As expected, the morning 63 by Daniel Berger (-9) has taken the lead on the first day of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. As if the small feat by the Florida native wasn’t enough to ensure his lead was safe, Bay Hill became much tougher during the final hours of play. The approach of a storm brought stronger and trickier winds to this corner of Orlando, changing and difficult to read, which combined with those dizzying greens, firmer and faster still in the afternoon session, caused some major upsets…
– Nico Echavarría (PAR), for example, had gone through with a crazy six-under stretch by the course’s midpoint and ended up just holding on for a draw. Or Rory McIlroy (PAR), who was patiently building a very solid round, but fell into the wind trap on the 13th hole and went into the water.
– In these circumstances, the afternoon card of 66 strokes by Ludvig Aberg (-6) should almost be considered in the same league as Berger’s morning 63. The Swede, once again, appears when you might not expect him, but his tee-to-green game, despite the wind, was imperial, which is what has always characterised Aberg since he broke into the top tier of world golf.
– Aberg hadn’t started strongly in 2026. Nor was 2025 ultimately a great year for the Nordic, when the opposite was expected after his victory at that Genesis at Torrey Pines. But just when one might be tempted to think he had lost that extraordinary momentum from his early exploits in top-level golf, he steps up again, and how. “I consider myself a patient player and in the last two rounds at Pebble Beach I found some things. I felt I saw some pretty good aspects of my game. Then one day my putting was good, another my short game was good, another my irons were good, another my driving was good. I just didn’t have the consistency I felt in what I was doing. I had a bad start at Riviera, but I saw some good things for the future. I felt it was there, somewhere, I just had to bring it all out at once. Today I did well,” he said at the end of the round. The truth is, this young man has nothing to prove, but he is already a slave to the monstrous expectations his explosive emergence had sparked.
– If we could wish for anything, it would be interesting if not too much rain fell on Bay Hill in the coming days, precisely to see the world’s best players tackle such a beast, once again, this titan with US Open-like features and mirror-like greens (even if Berger’s 63 might mislead us). The King’s house never disappoints, because even under very tricky conditions, it also rewards the player who truly excels at golf.
