In the first round of last week’s Valspar Championship I shot the kind of score that reflects the way I’ve been hitting it the past few months, a 69 to put myself in good shape.
In contrast, the following day’s 77 was one of those up-and-down rounds that featured a bit of everything, including a snapped shaft when I had to play a recovery hook-shot adjacent to a tree. Sure it’s been a frustrating little stretch on the PGA TOUR, especially as my game feels in decent shape, but as we all know, results can – and often do – turn around almost in the blink of an eye out here.
Anyway, next up is this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. I’ve won twice at Bay Hill – in 1998 and 2010 (below) – and in the most recent of those I came in with a lot of game, as they say. It’s a bit different at the moment, but you always love to come back to a golf course where you’ve won before and this tournament has been one of my favourites since Arnold gave me an invite in 1993. That was a special experience for a young rookie on TOUR, playing the first two rounds with one of the all-time legends of the game. I’ve never forgotten how kind Arnold was to me at the start of my career and basically, ever since then, I’ve always cherished the opportunities to play here.
Arnold has done so much for golf and all of the current players have the utmost respect for the man and his achievements. Let’s face it, his charisma and the extraordinary way he played the game is one of the major reasons we’re here doing what we do today.
It’s equally fair to say that the success of this tournament is down to Arnold and his standing in the game. He won it in 1971 when it was the Florida Citrus Open and he’s been the tournament’s host for the past 35 years. It’s only right that it now has his name ‘on the door’ and all of the players love coming to Bay Hill. It always gets a great field and, of course, Tiger has won it eight times. Interestingly, there have been only five international victories in the 36 times they’ve played this event here at Bay Hill, which makes me even more proud of my two wins.
The golf course has changed a little bit since we first started coming here and it’s got tougher, for sure. In fact, some of the par-3s are among the toughest we play on TOUR. It’s a long golf course, it often plays firm and you can be hitting a lot of club into greens, with water all around. That’s a tough proposition, especially if the wind blows, but I love Bay Hill as an all-round test of golf. Let’s see how we go this week. Obviously I’m looking forward to it.
Before that I just want to congratulate two fine young players on excellent victories over the weekend. First, to Jordan Spieth who was really impressive down the stretch and in the playoff to win at Innisbrook. As you may recall, Jordan played in our annual Els for Autism Pro Am at Old Palm the previous week and actually continued something of a tradition in either winning the following week or having a standout season on TOUR. There was Michelle Wie last year, then Luke Donald in 2011 when he won the Money List on both sides of the Atlantic, and Scotty when he won the Masters in 2013.
It’s also worth pointing out that Jordan has recently set up his own charitable fund to assist various causes such as children with special needs, military families and junior golf. Click here to find out more and get behind this great initiative.
Congrats also to my good friend George Coetzee who won the Tshwane Open on Sunday at the golf course he grew up playing on. A bit of home advantage never does any harm. That makes it four South African wins already on the 2015 European Tour – Branden Grace has won twice, then there’s Trevor Fisher Jnr who won at East London two weeks ago. That number says a lot for our nation’s young talent. And by the way, for those of you who love a bit of golfing trivia, George’s win last week was the 130th South African victory in European Tour history. That’s a stat that we can all be proud of.
Remember, you can follow me on Twitter @TheBig_Easy where there’s currently a competition where you can win a putter headcover signed by Branden Grace and myself, courtesy of our friends at the European Tour. Just click here to enter.
Finally, here’s a good luck message from me to South Africa on Wednesday in their quarter-final match against Sri Lanka in the Cricket World Cup. You can do it boys #proteafire!
