The First Look: Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard

The PGA TOUR’s Florida swing continues at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge – an iconic venue for one of the most iconic players of all time.

The Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard is the second of three player-hosted invitationals (along with Tiger Woods’ The Genesis Invitational and Jack Nicklaus’ the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday) on the TOUR’s schedule this year and is the fourth of eight Signature Events.

Here's everything else you need to know before play begins in Orlando.

FIELD NOTES: Austin Eckroat will head north from Palm Beach Gardens to Orlando in search of back-to-back TOUR titles, fresh off a victory at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in a Monday finish. Eckroat, who finished No. 3 in the inaugural PGA TOUR University Ranking in 2021, became the second PGA TOUR University alum to win on TOUR after Ludvig Åberg. Eckroat won the Cognizant Classic by three shots and will make his Bay Hill debut this week … Defending champion Kurt Kitayama looks to continue his solid play so far in 2024 and hopes to become the first back-to-back winner at Bay Hill since Matt Every in 2014-15. Kitayama is 5-for-5 in made cuts on TOUR this season … Reigning FedExCup champ Viktor Hovland is back in action. Hovland last teed it up at The Genesis Invitational where he finished tied for 19th. He has recorded back-to-back top-10 results at Bay Hill, including a runner-up in 2022 … Current world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is back in action and looking to continue his excellent form at Bay Hill. Scheffler has gone T4-1-T15 in his last three Arnold Palmer Invitational starts, and he hasn’t finished worse than T17 in his last five TOUR starts – including three straight top 10s … Other notables include Rory McIlroy (the winner in 2018 and runner-up a year ago), two-time winners from last season Lucas Glover and Max Homa, recent major champs Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark, past FedExCup champs Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay, and plenty more star power.

Of note: The Arnold Palmer Invitational will once again act as a qualifying event for The Open Championship, with three spots available to those not already qualified.

SPONSOR EXEMPTIONS: European Ryder Cuppers Nicolai Højgaard and Shane Lowry are both teeing it up at Bay Hill … Højgaard missed the cut at his Arnold Palmer Invitational debut in 2022 but comes to Orlando having found the weekend in five straight TOUR events. He also won the DP World Tour Championship in November … Lowry finished 67th at Bay Hill a year ago but comes into the week after finishing tied for fourth at the Cognizant Classic – his third straight top-five finish at PGA National … Adam Scott looks to continue his hot play of late on TOUR. Scott has notched four straight top-20 finishes on TOUR dating back to last year. This will be his 13th start at Bay Hill with a career-best showing of third place, both in 2004 and 2014. That’s a promising pattern for this week … 2018 PLAYERS champion Webb Simpson rounds out the sponsor invites given to TOUR pros. Simpson finished 24th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last season – his first start in Orlando since 2017.

David Ford, a junior at the University of North Carolina, earned his way into the field thanks to winning a vote of his peers at the 2023 Palmer Cup. Ford, the 2023 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and a first-team All-American was part of the winning USA team at the Palmer Cup. Beginning in 2017, the winning team has voted for one individual to receive an exemption into the Arnold Palmer Invitational – with Åberg and Collin Morikawa among the previous winners. This will be Ford’s third PGA TOUR start. Ford, who is third in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, played The RSM Classic in November alongside his twin brother, Maxwell.

SIGNATURE EVENT STORYLINES: With his first PGA TOUR victory, Eckroat earned his way into the Arnold Palmer Invitational (along with the remaining four Signature Events this season) … Mark Hubbard and Thomas Detry were bumped from the Aon Next 10 after the Cognizant Classic, with Eckroat making a hearty jump after his win. Erik van Rooyen also slid in with a tie for second at PGA National … Min Woo Lee, who finished second alongside van Rooyen, jumped into the second spot on the Aon Swing 5 to earn a spot at Bay Hill … The others in the Aon Swing 5 remained unchanged week-over-week with Sami Valimaki, C.T. Pan, Stephan Jaeger and Justin Lower rounding out that group … The Arnold Palmer Invitational will be the fourth Signature Event of the season … The next Signature Event on the PGA TOUR schedule is the RBC Heritage in mid-April. The Aon Swing 5 standings for Harbour Town start with the Puerto Rico Open and continue through the Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open … The Aon Next 10 for the RBC Heritage is comprised of the current-year FedExCup standings through the Masters Tournament.

COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 UPDATES: With his tie for fourth at the Cognizant Classic, Jake Knapp jumped from No. 8 to No. 5 in the standings … Chris Kirk also jumped one spot in the standings from No. 4 to No. 3 after a final-round, 6-under 65 at PGA National … Cognizant Classic winner Austin Eckroat jumped 78 spots in the standings to No. 17, about 50 points back from a spot in the TOUR TOP 10.

FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 700 FedExCup points.

COURSE: Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge, par 72, 7,466 yards. Bay Hill will once again host the Arnold Palmer Invitational, as it has every year since 1979. It’s a mostly flat layout but features water challenges on most holes and demands a high level of ball-striking to score well. A shotmaker’s delight, Bay Hill is as testy as any PGA TOUR venue across the last half decade, with single-digit under-par winning scores in three of the last four seasons.

72-HOLE RECORD: 264, Payne Stewart (1987)

18-HOLE RECORD: 62, Andy Bean (Round 2, 1981), Greg Norman (Round 2, 1984), Adam Scott (Round 1, 2014).

LAST TIME: Kurt Kitayama let a star-studded cast of chasers back into the mix after making a triple bogey on the par-4 ninth Sunday, but a clutch birdie on the penultimate hole of the tournament followed by a nifty lag putt from 47 feet (to tap-in range) secured his first PGA TOUR title. Kitayama put together a virtuoso statistical effort – he ranked T1 in driving accuracy, T1 in greens in regulation and No. 3 in Strokes Gained: Putting. Kitayama shot back-to-back even-par 72s at Bay Hill over the weekend, weathering Sunday’s triple bogey with steady back-nine play to hold off an impressive pack including Rory McIlroy and Harris English, who shared second place one shot back. Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler finished a shot further back at 7-under and tied for fourth. Scheffler was looking to go back-to-back at Bay Hill but shot a 1-over 73 in the final round.

HOW TO FOLLOW: (All times ET)

Television:

• Thursday-Friday: 2-6 p.m. (Golf Channel),
• Saturday-Sunday: 12:30-2:30 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2:30-6 p.m. (NBC)

PGA TOUR LIVE:

PGA TOUR LIVE is available exclusively on ESPN+

• Main Feed: Primary tournament coverage featuring the best action from across the course
• Marquee Group: New “marquee group” showcasing every shot from each player in the group
• Featured Groups: Traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groups
• Featured Holes: A combination of par 3s and iconic or pivotal holes

PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and free on PGATOUR.COM/liveaudio:

• Thursday-Friday: noon-6 p.m
• Saturday-Sunday: 1-6 p.m.