Graeme McDowell in action at Gardagolf

Bay Hill first-round preview and talking points from Ben Coley

By Ben Coley

Golf

Wed March 06, 2019 · 6y ago

Ben Coley sets the scene ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where three places in the Open Championship are up for grabs.

Recommended bets

2pts Hadwin to win his three-ball at 13/10

2pts Hatton to win his three-ball at 11/8

Quite why the Open champion has been grouped with Brice Garnett and Ted Potter I have no idea, but if you're happy playing odds-on in three-balls then Francesco Molinari will do for you in the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

The Italian has an excellent Florida record including here, where he's made all six cuts, never finished worse than a debut 34th and has finished inside the top 10 in three of his five subsequent visits.

That's the sort of consistency we've come to expect from him, but it was built before he took his game to new heights and were it not for the fact he's only played eight rounds of tournament golf in 2019, he'd have been towards the top of the shortlist for an outright bet.

This really is an excellent course for the Italian and while I'd be slightly concerned about sharpness over 72 holes against elite opposition, he should have few troubles confirming that he's in the wrong group here.

Better value, though, lies with Adam Hadwin at odds-against.

Not dissimilar in style to Molinari, the Canadian also boasts a solid Bay Hill record and his sole PGA Tour success to date came in Florida at the Valspar Championship.

He was a little disappointing in Mexico, but that curious golf course throws up all manner of strange events and I wouldn't get hung up on the form - toiling at altitude and in the heat can mean players down the field throw in the towel from a fairly early stage.

Hadwin is better judged on his earlier form, including second in his favourite event on the west coast but also 18th at Pebble Beach, and with nothing worse than 73 here in eight spins he's going to be hard to beat.

Hudson Swafford likes the course but back-to-back missed cuts for a player so used to making them would be a worry, while the third member of the group, Vijay Singh, has to back-up from a draining Honda Classic.

Clearly, Singh was outstanding last week and it's somewhat reductive to suggest that one of the fittest 50-somethings in sport will be a spent force, but there's no denying the fact that it came out of the blue.

Singh hasn't played back-to-back PGA Tour events in over a year and when he was sixth in the Honda back in 2016, he opened with a round of 75 at the Valspar a fortnight later. On balance he's expected to struggle.

Danny Willett would've been of interest at 100/30 but for the fact he happens to be playing with two of the most reliable performers in the sport, so it's compatriot Tyrrell Hatton who gets the next best vote.

Hatton finished fourth here on debut and made the cut last year, so he knows and likes Bay Hill where his ability to perform in the wind - see those two Dunhill Links titles - is advantageous.

Two top-20 finishes in his last three starts suggest he's warming to the task nicely with the big events on the horizon and that course experience gives him a definite edge over Matt Wallace.

Of course, Wallace has been learning on the job and very quickly but he's tended to start slowly - 71, 74 since coming over from Europe, where he'd been slowly away anyway to start the year - and he'll do well to match Hatton over 18 holes.

Completing the group is Scott Stallings, better known for his exploits on the west coast despite having won in Virginia and Mississippi. His record at Bay Hill is atrocious and he's not as good a player as the other two, for all that he's tough and easy to admire.

The Open

Tuesday's press release from the R&A came too late to remind me - at least in terms of my outright preview - that this week's Arnold Palmer Invitational is the latest leg in the so-called Series, events through which one can qualify for the Open Championship.

It's difficult to know to what extent, if at all, this seeps into the consciousness of touring professionals, particularly on the PGA Tour, where a seven-figure first prize tends to narrow the focus.

For the first 54 or even 63 holes it's unlikely that many of those lining up at Bay Hill will give a second thought to Royal Portrush in July. Even then, with just three places on offer, only a runaway leader would deflect attention to surely one of the most potentially significant consolation prizes in sport.

Yet there are two players in particular who would unquestionably take third place right now, on the eve of the event, knowing that it would ensure a place in the field for the 148th Open Championship.

Graeme McDowell would dearly love to be there. He is from Portrush, and when the venue was brought back onto the open roster in 2014 described it as the stuff of dreams.

"Beautiful - it’s been a dream of mine since I was a child," he told the Telegraph at Pinehurst, where he'd made a solid start to the US Open. "I’ve spent many an hour out on that course as a kid, dreaming of playing majors and to have the Open Championship come to Portrush is special stuff."

At the time, of course, McDowell would've felt near certain to be part of the field. He'd played well in a couple of World Golf Championship events in the spring and sat 22nd in the world golf rankings; he was a member of the game's elite, looking ahead not over his shoulder.

Less than a month later, McDowell would go on to win the 13th title of his professional career and when that victory came, at Le Golf National, confirmed some three years earlier as host venue for the 2018 Ryder Cup, the Celtic Manor hero would have felt equally certain he'd be featuring as a player in Paris.

There tends not to be an agonal gasp in sport; you never know when it's your last. And now, in 2019, McDowell will be determined, perhaps more so than he has ever been about anything, to make sure he is not done playing majors. At the very least, he'll be desperate not to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Perhaps, then, he'll secure the required finish here, where he's twice been runner-up. McDowell needs to be one of the top three players not already exempt for the Open, but also to finish inside the top 10. It's the latter point which seems particularly cruel and totally unnecessary to me - were McDowell to finish 11th, with 10 world-class players ahead of him, why shouldn't he receive an invite?

Should he miss this opportunity, there are more to come and perhaps the best is in Spain, at Valderrama, where he won in 2010, the standout season of his career. The field for the Andalucia Masters will be weak and McDowell's old-fashioned game works as well there as it does anywhere. It remains his best chance as things stand, but I wouldn't rule out the idea that he takes care of business before then.

And then there's Shane Lowry, who must surely feel if not as strongly as McDowell about an Open in Portrush, part of Northern Ireland, then at least like it's a major he should be playing in because it's a major he can win.

There's no finer clue towards major winners than that year's roll-of-honour and from the moment Lowry rolled in the winning putt in Abu Dhabi for a long overdue success, he'll have been on the radar of many for the third major of the revamped season.

Yet victory there was not enough for a place. No, winning in world-class company, on the European Tour in the year of the Open Championship does not necessarily mean you're in. Lowry ought to be, and like McDowell has Valderrama to fall back on should this earlier chance go begging.

Fascinatingly, they're grouped together for the opening two rounds. I for one hope they spur each other on.