2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational Round 2 Betting and Showdown Picks

Mar 04, 2022

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Rory McIlroy opened with a 7-under 65 on Thursday and holds the lead after the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Along with six birdies, he offset his only bogey with an eagle on the 16th hole. McIlroy won here at Bay Hill in 2018 and has finished in the top 10 for each of the last five events. The trio of Billy Horschel, Beau Hossler and J.J. Spaun are tied for second place at 5-under. With little-to-no wind on Thursday, conditions were perfect for players to shoot low rounds. Looking ahead to Friday, there is a potentially huge wind advantage for players in the morning wave. Winds are forecast between 1-5 MPH in the morning and then rise to 9-12 MPH in the afternoon with gusts up to 18 MPH.

Weather Forecast

Post-Round 1 Player Quotes

*Quotes courtesy of ASAP Sports Transcriptions

Rory McIlroy: I think you turn up at any golf course where you've had success, and automatically you're going to have some confidence coming in. I've shot some really nice scores here. I think the last couple of years I've opened up the tournament really well with scores similar to what I shot today. I feel there's a nice flow to this golf course where you can really build a score. You have par-5s, one every few holes, and you've got a couple of scoreable par-4s. As long as you don't do anything stupid and you keep it in play, you feel like you can sort of methodically build a score on this golf course. That's what I tried to do today. I was actually pretty surprised at how firm the greens were already. From the Pro-Am yesterday, we played at a similar time to today. The golf course is firmed up already. I think with this weather and the sort of warmer weather that's coming over the weekend, it's just going to get more and more firm as the week goes on. Then that places a premium so much more on just getting the ball in play. Fairways and greens and just being really disciplined with your game.

Billy Horschel: Since they've changed this course from overseeded, the entire course being overseeded to Bermuda, and the only thing that's overseeded now is the rough. These greens are tricky. And you look at the winning score, except for maybe one year where I think it was 18, it's been 12, 10, and maybe single digits, around 5 or 7, the last three out of four years. Play one good round, you know you need to play one really good round around here. To get that in the first round allows me to not have to be overly aggressive the next couple days and sort of just play as smart as we did today and hopefully make a few putts out there.

Will Zalatoris: I played pretty solid. Made a couple of putts in the middle of the round. Drove it pretty well. I was able to save par. I think that saving par on 1 was kind of the epitome of the day, where 200 out of the rough and I could barely even get a wedge out of it. Then end up saving par from 65 yards. You've got to give yourself chances out here. You've got to keep it in the fairway as much as you possibly can. Even though you see the scores, Rory obviously went low, and you see a bunch of guys kind of shooting 4, 3, 2-under, this is as easy as you're going to see this place. No wind. This is the softest you're going to see it. The greens are already baking out. Scottie and I were joking about how we were having a tough time getting our putter heads solid on the green because there's so much grain and so glassy. This is the best I've ever seen it too. It's going to be fun. This weekend's going to be tough. Obviously, if the wind stays down, you won't be seeing any guys shooting even par and moving up 15 places like I did last year.