ORLANDO, Fla. — Arnold Palmer’s two British Open victories convinced American golfers to cross the Atlantic in the future while exhibiting his affinity for global competition.
Decades later, the Arnold Palmer Invitational has an international flavor and a growing list of champions from outside the U.S.
Through 36 holes at Bay Hill Club and Lodge several top Europeans are positioned to become the sixth non-American in seven years to win Palmer’s event.
Norway’s Viktor Hovland, at 9-under 135 total, continues to play as well as anyone in the game and sits atop a leaderboard with three Euros in the top four and a total of five among the top 12. Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and Englishman Tyrrell Hatton, two past API winners, are tied with American Talor Gooch 2 shots behind at 7-under.
Since 2016, the tournament crowned champions from Australia twice and Italy, along with McIlroy (2018) and Hatton (2020), before American Bryson DeChambeau ended a five-year American drought in 2021 with a 1-shot victory over England’s Lee Westwood.
“The course lends itself to guys who have grown up in conditions like an Australia or like a Europe where it gets firm and it gets tricky,” McIlroy said. “It’s a great tournament with sort of an international flavor. That’s really sort of stood out over the last few years.”
Bay Hill’s brutish conditions had everyone’s attention as Friday’s second round wound down.
The day’s scoring average of 74.34 was 2 strokes higher than Friday (72.29). Even the best ball strikers looked lost on the 7,378-yard layout.
Will Zalatoris followed a first-round 68 with a 77 while Adam Scott carded a 41 on the back nine to fall from the thick of contention to 9 shots back.
Among the dozen players entering the weekend 3-under or better, Gooch, McIlroy and Cameron Young (-3) were the only ones who didn’t tee off in the morning.
Late in the day, Bay Hill’s greens were increasingly firm and slick, with no end in sight.
“There’s a handful of shots I hit today that there’s probably a lot of fans out there who were like, ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ “ Gooch said. “They were elite golf shots. People just don’t understand how penal it is around the greens and the spots we’re having to land shots.
“You’ve got to be so precise.”
Gooch was more dialed in than anyone during a grueling afternoon wave featuring 5-hour rounds due to the conditions. The 30-year-old Oklahoman was bogey-free until his final hole, the par-4 9th, on his way to a 4-under 68.
Gooch now looks to back it up with two solid rounds.
Last month at Phoenix, he shot a Sunday 75 to tumble down the leaderboard, and then followed it missing the cut by a mile at Riviera.
“Golf was hard that week,” he said. “It’s just this game gets you sometimes, and it got me that week.”
Since his 2020 API victory, Hatton has experienced his share of shaky weeks but arrived at his first U.S. event in 2022 coming off a pair of top-10 finishes in the Middle East.
Hatton took just 22 putts Friday yet is unconvinced he’s ready to win at Bay Hill again unless he improves the rest of his game.
“The score is pretty flattering,” Hatton said. “I know that I can’t keep hitting it that badly — certainly with it’s going to be playing much tougher this weekend.”
Hovland needed just 23 putts himself during his 6-under 66. He also made one of the day’s more impressive swings — a 5-iron to inside 10 feet to finish with a 2 on the 234-yard par-3 17th hole.
Playing partner Billy Horschel, at the time 4-under on the day and holding the lead at 9-under, made a 5. The former Florida Gators All-American never recovered to card a tepid 1-under 71 and enter the weekend 6-under 138.
“That’s a tough hole. Obviously a lot of things can happen,” Hovland said. “It was a perfect number. I hit it really well. Yeah, I’ll try to hit more of those shots.”
Hovland was also pleased with his birdie out of fairway bunker on No. 15 and another birdie — 1 of 7 on the day — on the par-5 4th despite twice hitting out of the rough before reaching the green, where he sank a putt inside 15 feet.
“I was out of position a couple times, but I was able to make the best out of it,” he said.
Hovland now aims to capitalize on his third 36-hold lead on the PGA Tour. In 2020, he shared the lead after two rounds in Puerto Rico and won with a 72nd-hole birdie. At the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open, he finished in a second-place logjam 5 shots behind Patrick Reed.
Whoever emerges Sunday as the API champion will have made the best of a difficult situation.
Fast, firm conditions and temperatures pushing 90 degrees are going to make for two long and demanding days.
“That’s what it’s about,” McIlroy said. “Just not getting frustrated over the weekend, having as much patience as possible.”
