Far From a Classic
The less said about last week, the better! Unfortunately, Niemann wasn’t over the previous week’s result, and Im failed to turn up as both players missed the cut. In all honesty, I don’t think I would have found Straka either.
We need a big week this week, and I’m confident of providing one at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. We will begin, as always, by taking a look at the history of the tournament as we start to build this week’s BeerLife profile.
Tournament Information
The Arnold Palmer Invitational is a PGA Tour event held in Orlando. The event is part of the Florida Swing, which takes place in March throughout the Sunshine State. In 1966, the Arnold Palmer Invitational was renamed from the Florida Citrus Open Invitational and became a PGA Tour event. It was not initially affiliated with the great golfer, who took over the tournament in 1979 and relocated it to his Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando.
During Tiger Woods’ career, it took on much more significance, as he won the tournament eight times, often in a dramatic way. Tiger Woods has the most victories in the tournament’s history, with eight. It has never been won by anyone else more than twice. From 2000 through 2003, Woods won four times in a row.
Let’s turn our attention to the form of the previous five winners, analyze their rounds and see if we can find some crucial links to begin our BeerLife profile.
Past Results
2021 Bryson DeChambeau – 277 – Form 22/CUT/7/34
2020 Tyrrell Hatton – 284 – Form 6/14/6/59
2019 Francesco Molinari – 276 – Form 17/27/43/-
2018 Rory McIlroy – 270 – Form CUT/59/20/CUT
2017 Marc Leishman – 277 – Form 27/CUT/24/20
The Course
This historic course is a conventional parkland challenge requiring precision ball striking and excellent putting. The course has a variety of defenses, including a lot of water and a lot of bunkering. Therefore, strong play from tee to green is essential, with dogleg holes to negotiate and long par-3s and reachable par-5s to contend with.
This week, the weather looks okay, although the forecast is for high winds, especially over the weekend, which could be testing.
The Field
Following a dramatic finish at last week’s Honda Classic, the PGA Tour continues its ‘Florida Swing’ with the historic Arnold Palmer Invitational, which will have a large field at the magnificent Bay Hill. Unfortunately, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, regarded as one of the most important events on the PGA Tour calendar, will be without defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, who is still recovering from an injury. However, that hasn’t stopped the likes of Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, and Viktor Hovland from competing, with the field boasting 31 players ranked in the top 50 in the world.
Key Stats
We run each player in the field through our BeerLife profile analysis to develop our selections. This is what we are looking for this week:
Eating Your Greens – These greens are among the hardest to hit on the PGA Tour, so GIR success is probably the best statistic to use this week. Last year, the first and second home came first and second for GIR, and four of the previous five winners have ranked inside the top ten.
Greens In Regulation Percentage
- Jon Rahm
- Collin Morikawa
- Lucas Glover
- Russell Knox
- Kevin Kisner
Horses For Courses – The previous five winners finished inside the top five before winning here.
Arnold Palmer Invitational 2022
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Lee Westwood
- Corey Conners
- Andrew Putnam
- Jordan Spieth
- Richy Werenski
Five Star Performance – The tournament could undoubtedly be won on the par fives this week as they offer the best scoring chances being on the shorter side.
Par 5 Scoring Average
- Patrick Cantlay
- Cameron Smith
- Matt Fitzpatrick
- Collin Morikawa
- Max Homa
Accuracy The Key Off the Tee – Most people will probably advise that power is the key off the tee this week, but I think that is questionable. The fairway rough is amongst the most challenging on Tour, so avoiding these is far better for me than hitting it further.
Driving Accuracy Percentage
- Ryan Armour
- Kevin Kisner
- Brian Stuard
- Daniel Berger
- Tyler Duncan
Draft Picks
After looking at the above data and running the field through our Beerlife profile builder, we have selected the following picks.
Must-Have Players – These are the players you need to have in your lineup regardless of the price.
| Kevin Kisner |
| Odds To Win +13000 |
| DraftKings $7,200 |
| FanDuel |
| Kisner is having a good season with three top-ten finishes in only eight starts. Furthermore, his eighth-place finish was similar to Bryson’s seventh-place finish last year, and he went on to lift this trophy. His course form here is a bit erratic, but he did finish as the runner-up in 2017, so he does have some course form. If he can create chances for himself this week, I am confident he will take them as he is one of the best putters on Tour this season. And that has every chance of happening given how accurate he is off the tee and the number of greens in regulation he hits. One thing that stands out to me is that he gets better as a tournament progresses. His round average improves the deeper he goes in a tournament. This could be crucial here, as the weather conditions will be the most testing on the final two days when hopefully, he is playing his best golf. |
Steady Eddies – These guys should give a good account of themselves and are good additions to your lineup.
| Lee Westwood |
| Odds To Win +13000 |
| DraftKings $7,100 |
| FanDuel |
| Good links players tend to do well here, and Westwood is amongst the finest on the planet. He has played very little golf on the PGA Tour this season, but he did okay at the Honda Classic last week, which was presumably a tune-up for this one. He was a regular at the Bay Hill Invitational, but he tended not to enter as often when the tournament changed names. However, he came runner up here last year and fancies his chances of going one step further this year. This is especially the case seen as the guy that beat him last year is not in the field here. |
Hey Guys
My name is Dean, AKA The Stat Man. I am a Sports Betting Analyst who uses math, algorithms, probability and logic to create my posts. I specialize in many sports, with Golf being the primary focus. You can find a lot of my work on various websites but the best content is found here on Beer Life.
I live in the UK, on the outskirts of London but my background and heritage is Irish. I'm an avid Manchester United fan who sees following them as a religion. Sport is pretty much my life, as I live and breathe it daily. If there is something I don't know it's probably not worth knowing as I have over 20 years industry experience and insight.
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As always, believe in the power of statistics!
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