Tour Guide: Under One Umbrella

The Tour heads to Bay Hill for a tournament that’s both a signature event in terms of new corporate speak and a signature event in terms of being one of the longstanding historical stops on the calendar.

Not a Rough Test

By Joseph LaMagna

For some of you, Bay Hill is probably a highly anticipated week. For anyone who takes exception to some of its architectural shortcomings, though, this may be a week that inspires less enthusiasm. I’m writing this from Orlando after walking nine holes on Tuesday afternoon. In case you had any concerns, I can confirm from being on the ground that the rough is thick and the course is flat. (More on-the-ground insights likely to come in Friday’s newsletter.)

Bay Hill is a long, challenging golf course, especially when it is windy. Watch how much freedom players have to swing driver without fear of major consequence. Bay Hill is a prime example of how a few narrow fairways and thick rough does not make for a strong test of driving accuracy. To understand the degree to which accuracy is tested, you have to consider how much a golfer is penalized when a shot travels way off line compared to the penalty associated with a small miss. When courses are narrow and protected by thick rough and trees just off the fairway, people typically think that’s a strong accuracy test. But more often than not, this combination is a recipe for anything but. These are the Winged Foot-like setups upon which long foul ball hitters like Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy thrive.

The third hole is kind of Bay Hill in a nutshell. Water runs the length of the hole down the left-hand side. Smart players favor the right-hand side and take a swing that (mostly) removes the water from their range of outcomes. If you miss the fairway right, obviously you won’t be happy about it, but it isn’t a big deal either. The optimal line off the tee will bring some right misses into your range of outcomes, but you won’t miss left into the penalty area.

Dispersion chart at Bay Hill's third hole.

Inaccurate drivers salivate when they see this type of setup. Kurt Kitayama, the defending champion, is an extremely inaccurate driver of the golf ball. He has one top-50 finish in major championships, a T4 at Oak Hill last year. Oak Hill similarly allowed golfers to spray the ball off the tee. There was little penalty associated with wide misses, and finding the fairway was difficult. You know who else finished in the top 10 at Oak Hill? Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau.

I expect Rory McIlroy to contend in this golf tournament. He has a stellar track record at Bay Hill, and has no problem providing answers to the mundane, repetitive questions asked by this course. He can swing with complete freedom off the tee and hit a plethora of moonshot long irons into the greens. As long as Rory keeps his ball dry and in-bounds, he’s going to be hard to beat.

A vintage Nestle Invitational logo. You don't see that specific color of turquoise used for polos anymore, huh? Really had a moment in pro shops in the 90s.

Memory Lane: Fuzzy Calls Bank

By Jay Rigdon

There’s certainly no shortage of history with this tournament. The longtime association with Arnold Palmer and the fact that Tiger Woods has won eight times would be enough to distinguish it among regular Tour stops, but the event has a lot more than that in its past as well. Going back thirty years, for example, we get the 1994 edition won by Loren Roberts.

Roberts had a better career than I realized before researching this; he exists in the zone of players I surely spent time watching growing up who, if they walked by me on the street today, I would almost certainly have no shot at recognizing. But he won eight times from 1994-2002, with his first career Tour victory coming in 1994 at what was then the Nestle Invitational at Bay Hill.

Roberts had been chasing his first win for a while at that point, and the writeups of the win made sure to note he’d held the unfortunate title of Most Money Earned Without Actually Winning A Tournament. That admittedly doesn’t sound like the worst possible situation to be in. Off the top of my head, it at the very least beats the hell out of Least Money Earned Without Actually Winning A Tournament.

But it’s the how we’re more interested in here, because Roberts didn’t put his first win away in dominant fashion. The AP writeup leads with a pretty brutal opening sentence, saying he backed in to the victory:

“It didn’t matter to Loren Roberts that he backed in to the title in the Nestle Invitational.

It did not concern him that the victory was achieved with his ball in his pocket, his day’s work done, while he stood and watched from behind the 18th green at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club. After more than 12 years of struggle without a victory on the PGA Tour, “I’ll take it anyway I can get it,” a delighted, grateful Roberts said Sunday.

The 38-year-old veteran became a first-time winner as the beneficiary of major mistakes by Fuzzy Zoeller and Vijay Singh, each of whom dropped two shots on the last two holes and handed Roberts a one-stroke victory.”

Vijay three-putted 17 and then found the rough on 18 in an era when that was actually a hindrance. But it’s Zoeller’s collapse that makes me wish I could find video, because if this happened in the Twitter era it would have been absolute chaos.

From the LA Times:

“Zoeller self-destructed, pushing a three-iron shot into the gallery and off the bald head of a spectator and into the water on the par-three 17th hole.

‘It had ugly written all over it,’ Zoeller said.”

I love that the reporter here made sure to include that the head in question was a bald one. It truly makes the whole thing work. Imagine a tournament today being decided on a shot caroming off a fan’s dome into water. I’m not wishing injury on anyone, to be clear. I am not hoping for a fan to get beaned in a crucial moment of competition. But the Tour could use a bit of excitement this year.

Roberts would have probably his biggest moment in golf later that summer, losing to Ernie Els in extra holes of an 18-hole U.S. Open playoff at Oakmont. He would, however, return to the winner’s circle at Bay Hill in 1995, that time with a two-shot margin of victory.

One Shot From Last Week

By Will Knights

I refuse to pick any full shot from last week’s event at PGA National. It’s just too boring, and the soft conditions didn’t demand any sort of creativity. If you were hot and had your irons dialed in, you likely made A LOT of birdies very quickly.

Instead, we’re going to take a look at this bunker shot from David Skinns.

Beautiful up-and-down at the last for the co-lead 👏@SkinnsyGolf will hold the first lead/co-lead of his career heading into Sunday @The_Cognizant pic.twitter.com/lkH0p8Mqa8

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 2, 2024

I don’t care how good you are, no one wants a 40-yard bunker shot. You basically have two options. You can take a sand or lob wedge, carry the ball as close to the hole as possible, and spin it. Or you can take a lower-lofted club and allow for some roll out. Skinns chose the latter. By the looks of it, he takes a decent swing with a pitching wedge or maybe a 46°, and because of the soft conditions he’s able to carry the ball a decent way to the hole. The ball lands into the slope and rolls out slowly up the hill.

While Skinns makes this shot look really easy, I promise it is not. The long bunker shot requires you to swing without fear and to execute your vision. If he doesn’t catch this ball cleanly, he could have very well landed this ball less than halfway to the hole and had 30 feet for birdie. Or he could have caught it too cleanly and rounded the bases on his way home. But while the contact is impressive, I’m even more impressed with his controlled swing. The rhythm is terrific and controlled, allowing him to perfectly thump the sand behind the ball. A more uncommitted swing would mean deceleration and the club getting stuck in the sand, leading to all sorts of issues.

Turns out these guys are pretty good at golf.