In the interview area at Bay Hill, Rory McIlroy hunched over a small TV that sat on the ground inside a black plastic tub, watching just like so many others along with him, the moment that Kurt Kitayama finally proved himself to the golf world.

McIlroy had finished his 72 holes at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at eight under par, one shot back of Kitayama as the leader played Bay Hill’s famous par-4 18th. The Northern Irishman could have gone to the practice range to hit balls, anticipating a playoff. Instead, he remained, perhaps a show of faith in Kitayama that he would make par and close out the one-shot win.

A clutch approach from the thick left rough had Kitayama needing two putts from just inside 48 feet for victory. As the birdie try rolled toward the hole, 2019 Bay Hill champion McIlroy leaned forward to the TV. It looked for certain that the ball would disappear in the cup, only to hang on the edge, refusing to drop but leaving no doubt on the next stroke. Laughing, McIlroy mouthed, “Wow.” Kitayama marked his ball, tapping it in moments later to close out an eventful final-round 72, post a nine-under-par total and claim a $3.6 million payday, the biggest of the 30-year-old’s life.

It was a moment of relief for the UNLV graduate who in college was nicknamed “The Project” because his game needed so much work. In his pro career, he had competed on 10 tours around the world before earning a PGA Tour card. Now he was a PGA Tour winner in his 50th tour start and has jumped from 46 to 19 in the Official World Golf Ranking.

There were doubts, right until the end. Questions on Saturday night. How would Kitayama, the 54-hole leader, fend off charges from some of the world’s best players? On Sunday, McIlroy led midway through the back nine before bogeys at Nos. 14 and 15 sank him to a tie for second with Harris English. Jordan Spieth (70) made a valiant run, leading briefly on the back nine only to miss four consecutive putts inside eight feet to drop to a share of fourth. Patrick Cantlay (68), 2020 Palmer champion Tyrrell Hatton (72) and defending champ and World No. 2 Scottie Scheffler (73), shared fourth at seven under.

“You know who is near the top [of the leaderboard] and you just pay attention the whole day,” said Kitayama, clad in the red cardigan sweater given to the champion. “You can’t ignore it. You have to know where you’re at … and just embrace the whole situation.”

He certainly embraced a triple-bogey 7 he made at the difficult par-4 ninth, which appeared to everybody not named Kitayama that it was the beginning of the end for the only man inside the top 10 who didn’t already have a tour win to his credit. It was his second triple bogey of the weekend. But Kitayama’s caddie, Tim Tucker, who worked for Bryson DeChambeau when he won at Bay Hill in 2021, gave his boss a pep talk en route to the 10th tee.

“I said you’re tearing up the course; you’re a ball-striking machine,” an emotional Tucker said post-round.

“I still felt comfortable; it was one bad swing,” Kitayama said. “I didn’t feel out of place. Tim backed me up and that helped a lot.” (For the record, Kitayama became the first player on the PGA Tour winner to overcome a triple bogey in a final round since Viktor Hovland at the 2020 Puerto Rico Open.)

Kitayama survived Bay Hill’s brutal back nine with seven consecutive pars until the defining shot of the tournament. Sitting at eight under and tied with McIlroy, Scheffler, and English, he struck a perfect 6-iron from the tee at par-3 17th to 13 feet, then drained the putt to pull ahead. “It’s pretty amazing just to get your first win, I think is an unbelievable thing,” he said. “I’m lucky enough to have it at a very special place.”

Clutch birdie from @Kurt_Kitayama ?

He leads by one with one to play @APInv. pic.twitter.com/bjLuxCxIto

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 5, 2023

Kitayama is the first to acknowledge just how raw a player he was not that long ago. “Yeah, when I got into school I was struggling,” he said, “but the guys at the course saw me every day grinding, just working hard, and that’s kind of why they nicknamed me that.”

Improved after finishing school in 2015, Kitayama was no world beater however as he played his way around the world, competing anywhere and on any tour that would have him. “Canada, Korn Ferry Tour, PGA, Europe, Sunshine, Asian Tour. Asian Development Tour. Japan, Korea, and in India.”

Thankfully for him, Kitayama won on the Asian Tour and on its development circuit, before breaking through with two wins on the DP World Tour in 2018 and 2019. He then played on the Korn Ferry Tour, his performance pushing him to the PGA Tour in 2021.

Sam Greenwood

“You travel to every different country, dealing with logistics, food, the culture, language,” he said. “It helps you grow as a person and when you get into situations like this [Bay Hill], you know, there’s tougher things.”

He started to believe in himself when he racked up three runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour, most recently to McIlroy at the CJ Cup in South Carolina last fall.

“Finding those little successes around the world and making it out here, putting myself in contention there, you start to really believe in yourself, that you belong out here,” Kitayama said.

Finishing second to McIlroy by one shot at the CJ Cup at Congaree last October was the penultimate step in Kitayama’s journey. It was a full circle moment when four-time major winner McIlroy stayed around to congratulate the California native Sunday.

“Look at him; look at his smile,” Tucker said. “He got the monkey off his back, proving he can play with the big boys. I’m anxious to see what he can do the rest of this year.”

Now, “The Project” is complete.

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Despite being six shots off the lead when making the turn Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Rory McIlroy was in the lead by one shot while standing on Bay Hill’s par-3 14th tee box. He just didn’t know it.

McIlroy subsequently produced his worst swing of the day, one he desperately wishes he could have back. He hit the tee shot short and left of the green, the ball landing in a greenside bunker. He did well to get out and end 13 feet from the hole, but he two putted for bogey to drop back into a four-way tie for the lead with Jordan Spieth, Tyrrell Hatton and eventual winner Kurt Kitayama.

“If I look back on today the one thing I’ll rue is the tee shot on 14,” McIlroy said. “I birdied 13 and got on to 14 tee and I honestly thought I was still like one or two behind the lead. As I was walking to the 14th green, I looked behind me at the scoreboard, and I was leading by one. And if I had of known that, I wouldn’t have tried to play the shot that I played on 14, which was unfortunate, but I ended up making bogey there and then a bad swing off the tee on 15 and a bogey.

“So I had a chance at the last. I hit a good putt. It just missed on the low side. But it was a good week. I saw some positive signs. Game’s rounding into form for the bulk of the season.”

RELATED: Chased by some of the biggest names in the game, Kurt Kitayama did not back down

On the par-5 15th, McIlroy hit his drive way left, but it found a tree and fell down into gnarly rough. He hacked out, but didn’t reach the green, failed to get up and down and made a second consecutive bogey.

McIlroy made seven birdies and five bogeys on the day to shoot two-under 70. He and Harris English tied for second place, one shot behind Kitayama.

“Even though I didn’t get the win, I’m still pretty happy with how everything went this week,” McIlroy said. “But it was a great back nine. It was great to be involved with. I’m really happy for Kurt. He’s been playing well for awhile now and I’m happy to see him get his first win.”

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If only everyone had an opportunity to figure out exactly how they’d react if they were about to win $3.6 million.

That’s the situation that Kurt Kitayama found himself in late Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, only a couple hours after it looked like an ugly triple-bogey 7 on the ninth hole had ruined his chances of winning for the first time on the PGA Tour.

But Kitayama, 30, a man nicknamed “Quadzilla” by Xander Schauffele because of his prodigious thighs, told his caddie Tim Tucker that he was not rattled and that he knew with nine holes remaining, that anything could happen.

It did. Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth were among a group of top-ranked players who had a chance to win the trophy at Bay Hill but each of them faltered. Ultimately, it was Quadzilla who only needed par on the last hole to win, which he did.

But even that was eventful.

After hitting his drive in the thick, left rough, Kitayama was able to punch out his approach and onto the green 48 feet from the hole. From there he only needed to two putt.

He sent the first putt on the way and as it was tracking it looked for a moment as if it was going to go in. But it stopped mere centimetres short.

And, yet, Kitayama marked it. That’s right he marked a putt from inside a half inch for $3.6 million. (Side note: Before this week Kitayama’s career earnings on the PGA Tour were $4.2 million, his biggest payday $1.13 million for his second at the CJ Cup.)

“I thought I was going to set it and it was going to just roll in,” Kitayama confessed.

A nice problem to have.

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Jason Day has a classic Arnold Palmer story.

Yes, many golfers do, given that the King stayed in touch with players at all levels through meetings and his famous letters. But it was Day who had the honour of winning the last Arnold Palmer Invitational before Palmer died in late 2016 at age 87.

Sunday night of the 2016 Palmer event, Day had just finished his wire-to-tire victory at Orlando’s famed Bay Hill course. It was customary for champions of the invitational to do two things after winning: shake Palmer’s hand off the 18th green and come into his office inside the Bay Hill clubhouse to share a celebratory beverage.

“So, this is a unique story,” Day told Golf Digest after a practice round Tuesday ahead of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, a $20 million designated PGA Tour event. “Typically after every time you win here, you would go and have a celebratory drink with him. His drink was Ketel One vodka on the rocks. No mixer and it was like a good dose of Ketel One.”

Day, however, did not know Palmer’s usual drink.

“It was like 90-degree weather, and I was hot and hadn’t eaten really that much [all day]. So I go in and I say, ‘I’ll have whatever he has.’ And Arnie poured me a drink and I thought, I better finish this now. After that, I had to go on Golf Channel and I felt pretty buzzed.”

Back then, Day was in career-best form. The 2015 PGA Championship winner would go on to win the 2016 WGC-Match Play and the Players Championship to take the World No.1 spot and not relinquish it for almost a year. But the Australian star has not won on the PGA Tour since a pair of victories in 2018 and struggled with his form for several years after that. Last year, Day’s world ranking even dropped as low as 164th.

Day, now 35, has begun to turn things around. He’s getting comfortable with a swing rebuild under coach Chris Como, which aims to shallow the club and produce a fade in his full swing to alleviate chronic back injuries. The changes have seen Day record top-10 finishes in his past three starts leading into Bay Hill.

“It’s the best [my swing and body] have felt since I was No. 1 in the world,” Day said. “Over the last two years, I was just hoping to get through four days [pain-free at a tournament] I’d wake up every day with pain.”

Day’s tie for ninth at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera two weeks ago brought Day back inside the top 50 in the world and has him eyeing a return to the Masters. Day, who finished second at Augusta in 2011 and tied for fifth in 2019, only qualified for one major last year, the PGA Championship, which he did through a lifetime exemption as a winner.

“It’s been consistent hard work, being really disciplined with my body off the golf course and then being really disciplined with my swing,” Day said of the process.

“It’s also been about the drive to get back inside the top 50, little goals I set for myself. Then get back inside the top 25 and then top 10, hopefully.”

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By Christopher Powers
Outside of one poor putt at Bay Hill’s 16th green, Lee Westwood did everything he possibly could to at least force a playoff with Bryson DeChambeau on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. His finest moment may have come at the 18th tee, where, trailing by one, Westwood laced a drive down the middle of the fairway, seemingly setting himself up with a prime chance to attack the flag and make a birdie.

Westwood’s reward for hitting the drive of the week when he needed it most? His ball coming to rest in a sand-filled divot hole, turning up the degree of difficulty dial to 11 on an already pressure-packed approach shot from 170 yards away on one of the PGA Tour’s hardest closing holes.

Westwood into a divot on 18. Congrats Bryson. pic.twitter.com/4K5p1qs268

— Zack Pencer (@ZackPencer) March 7, 2021

Even so, the Englishman was able to find the green, but left himself with a 65-foot birdie putt. He got it down in two, making DeChambeau sweat out a 5½-footer for par that ultimately won it for Bryson in regulation.

Within minutes of Westwood’s brutal break, social media was lit aflame by people who believe it to be the most unfair rule in golf. OK, technically not being allowed relief from a divot is not really a rule, it’s just … exactly that, not being allowed relief. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that DeChambeau had gotten relief two holes earlier from the fringe about an inch off the green when he claimed a sprinkler head was impacting his shot.

As expected, Westwood took the whole thing in stride. He was not asked about the bad luck in his post-tournament press conference, but he did respond to a tweet on DivotGate Sunday evening.

Just gotta shrug it off and get on with it. The game was never meant to be fair. That’s the mental challenge.

— Lee Westwood (@WestwoodLee) March 8, 2021

If anyone knows about golf being unfair, it’s Westwood, which is why this reaction is not surprising in the least. His ball has found a divot hole before and it likely will again, be it on a Thursday morning while no one is watching or in the final pairing on Sunday. If and when it does, Westwood will step up, strike it and move on to the next shot, fair or unfair.

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By Dave Shedloski
Winning golf is a beautiful thing to behold. The feeling of satisfaction, the enjoyment of a job well done, the exhilaration one feels when having supreme control of your golf ball and hitting shot after shot with supreme confidence and impeccable precision.

Yeah, well, none of that really happened Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The winner, England’s Tyrrell Hatton, toured wind-swept Bay Hill Club with all the joy of a man who’d just endured a habanero enema. And at the end he appeared to exude what you’d suspect would be a similar expression of relief. You know, glad to get THAT over with.

Hatton, who has a reputation as a rather volatile sort, could smile, ever so slightly, after he two-putted for par on the famed 18th hole of Bay Hill’s Championship Course, which enabled him to hold off Marc Leishman by a stroke for his first PGA Tour title. A check for $1.674 million was just the analgesic to soothe a chapped disposition after Hatton cobbled together a final-round 74 in some of the most confounding conditions in the event’s history.

“It’s an incredible feeling to win on the PGA Tour and to do it at such an iconic venue,” said Hatton, 28, a four-time winner on the European Tour, who completed 72 holes in four-under 284, the highest winning score in tournament history. “I’ve grown up watching this event as a kid on TV, and to be sitting here next to the trophy now is an amazing feeling and very thankful I managed to hold on at the end.”

He looked a bit wrung out. And he was the winner, which not only gave him a healthy paycheck, but also a three-year PGA Tour exemption. It was almost too much to process for a guy who once lived in nearby Lake Nona and was trying to scratch out a living on the Hooters Winter Series.

“The setup was extremely tough,” he said judiciously. “And I said yesterday the hardest thing for me will be to manage myself. And over the course of this week I feel like I did a decent job of that.”

In contrast to the white-knuckle experience of the final 48 hours, the last two winners at Bay Hill, Francesco Molinari and Rory McIlroy, got to bathe in the glow of final-round 64s, charges that would have put a smile on Arnie’s face. Hatton probably more enjoyed sitting on his couch drinking red wine and playing Xbox, his preferred distractions while recovering from wrist surgery last November.

Hatton, never one to hide his emotions, kept his anger in check on Sunday. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Not since Martin Laird shot 75 in 2011 had the winner at Bay Hill closed with a round over par. The field scoring average of 74.402 ranked third highest in tournament history. That’s what happens when one guy shoots in the 60s over the last 36 holes. Take a bow Matthew Fitzpatrick for that final-round 69.

Four players finished in red figures. Only in 1980 were there fewer, when two men enjoyed that distinction. That year was rainy, windy and featured temperatures starting in the teens. This week the menu included gusting winds, thick rough and greens less forgiving than shoppers in the hand sanitizer aisle at Winn-Dixie.

After Hatton, the fifth straight non-American to triumph, and Leishman, the 2017 winner who closed with a 73, came Sungjae Im, who captured the equally chaotic Honda Classic the week prior. Im also shot a final-round 73 to end up two back at 286. Bryson DeChambeau pumped a fist emphatically after he birdied on the 72nd hole for a 71 and 287 total. He deserved to celebrate; he birdied the home hole each of the final two rounds—and there were only five there all weekend.

That was it for guys who finished in the red at Bay Hill. Everyone else, well, just saw red. Veteran Davis Love III admitted on Sunday that things were so tough over the weekend that the thought of shooting 100 was a legitimate fear.

“I’m all about having a fair test,” DeChambeau said. “How do you test … let’s just take this for example. Who is the smartest person in the world? How do you make a test for that, right? Well, you certainly don’t give them a test that’s 2 plus 2. And you certainly don’t give them something that we don’t understand yet, like what is gravity? So, we need to have a fair test out there, and I think that’s what we’re kind of struggling with a little bit. I think a lot of players struggled with that out there today. At some point the physics stop working, and I don’t think it’s a true test of who is better.”

DeChambeau later mentioned his level of satisfaction in remaining patient amid the weekend wreckage unfolding around him. The former U.S. Amateur winner was the only player to cover the final 36 holes under par.

World No. 1 Rory McIlory, the 2018 champion, was just two shots back at the start of the day, but a few “loose” shots cost him dearly. The Northern Irishman closed with a 76 and was part of a four-way tie for fifth at even-par 288. His consolation prize was joining Tiger Woods as the only players with seven or more consecutive top-five finishes since 2000. He didn’t seem impressed.

“It’s aggravating, but at the same time, I just have to keep telling myself the game’s there,” he said of his inability to close in recent tournaments, a malady that also plagued him early last season.

Winners of the B-Flight Sunday—otherwise known as the Open Qualifying Series that affords three players exemptions into the Open Championship, provided they finish in the top-10—were Keith Mitchell, Danny Lee and Joel Dahman, all who were part of the tie for fifth with McIlroy. Mitchell earned an Open spot via this tournament for the second straight year.

Hatton, who began the final round with a two-stroke lead, couldn’t help but revel in both his level of performance and his level-headedness. A fine ball-striker, he won this tournament with his iron game. He ranked first on Sunday in strokes gained/approach-the-green and second for the week.

Perhaps more importantly, he kept the histrionics in check— for the most part—which he attributed to modest expectations, given that this was just his second start after surgery on his right wrist. Why he would have modest expectations only he knows because he finished T-6 just two weeks ago in his comeback event, the WGC-Mexico Championship. Meanwhile, leading up to the operation, he was T-18 or better in five of six events, including a victory in the Turkish Airlines Open.

McIlroy had his seven straight top-five finish on tour, but a closing 76 came with plenty of frustration, too. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

“So it might sound daft,” he began, “but my expectations maybe aren’t as high as they would be in a middle of the season if I had been playing quite a bit. But this is still kind of part of the comeback for me and maybe that helped.

“Obviously I was getting frustrated at times, but nowhere near the blowups that I am capable of. And it’s just one of those days where you just got to stick in there, and patience is one of the hardest things with me. To think that I’ve shot … what was it, three over for the weekend, and ended up winning the tournament. If you told me that on Friday night, I wouldn’t have believed you.

“I’m just happy that I’ve managed myself well enough this week to be sitting here.”

Given where he was eight years ago, crashing with several roommates just up the road and not knowing where his career could lead him, it’s obvious that Hatton has managed himself well enough for quite some time. He’s now risen to No. 22 in the world.

Which has to be plenty satisfying.

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By Tod Leonard
Throw a golf ball against a jagged rock and no two bounces will be the same.

When Rory McIlroy reviewed the tape of his approach shot to the 18th green on Saturday in the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he was going to see just how unlucky he was.

Two inches higher, or maybe if the rock was angled a tiny degree differently, the Irishman might have gotten a huge lucky break, with his ball kicking on the green. Instead, it caromed at a low angle into the bank and trickled into the water.

McIlroy, who arrived at 18 tied for the lead, eventually salvaged bogey, and on this day, that was almost like posting a red number at the brutal closer.

Among just the top 22 players on the leader board after the third round, five double-bogeyed 18 – all finding the water with their approach shots. Sung Kang didn’t hit the wet stuff and suffered worse. He hooked his drive into someone’s backyard and made a triple-bogey 7.

All this carnage amid the nearly unprecedented punishment Bay Hill delivered. Only the final round in 1980 – when winner Dave Eichelberger famously donned pantyhose under his slacks to stay warm – was the scoring higher in a round of the tournament.

Not a single player scored in the 60s, joining the ’80 round in that category. Former world No. 1 Brooks Koepka wrote down an 81.

Third-round leader Tyrell Hatton ultimately retained his lead at six under with a one-over 73. He made a double at the ninth, but also drained only the third birdie of the day at 18.

In second place, two shots back, Marc Leishman (72) and McIlroy (73) were disaster-free, each making only two bogeys.

“Looking at the scores, you know, it felt like a U.S. Open out there,” McIlroy said. “So it was, yeah, a good test.”

Some might choose another adjective.

There were so many big numbers.

Kang’s back nine was a study in golf’s confounding vagaries. In an eight-hole stretch, from 11 through 18, he made two triple bogeys, two bogeys and two birdies. At the par-4 11th, Kang pull-hooked his drive into the water and then came up short in the lake with his third-shot approach. Final tally: triple-bogey 7. He shot 78 and fell into solo eighth.

The beast that is Bay Hill.

With a two-shot lead, Sung Kang hit two shots in the water and triple bogeyed the 11th. He drops to T3 at 4-under. pic.twitter.com/zaav5l74FL

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 7, 2020

Sam Burns, who began the day tied for seventh at four under, had this stretch of consecutive holes on the back nine: bogey, birdie, quadruple bogey (two approaches in the water at 13), birdie, bogey. And wouldn’t you know it, he parred 18. His final tally was 76 and he was T-9.

Danny Lee got breaks going both ways on the back nine. At the par-5 12th, he holed out a wedge from about 70 yards for birdie. At 18, his approach found the rocks, bounced high into the blue sky, and ultimately got rinsed. It was hardly crushing, under the circumstances. Lee scored 75 and dropped only one spot on the leader board into a tie for fourth.

Rocks. In golf, they’re usually not your friend.

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By Christopher Powers

Sixty-nine players teed it up on Saturday at Bay Hill. Only one (Max Homa) shot under par. Twenty-five of them shot rounds of five over or worse, including Sung Kang, who held a share of the 36-hole lead.

Somehow, Tyrrell Hatton escaped the wreckage nearly unscathed, posting a one-over 73 that was good enough to give him the solo lead heading into Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Hatton made two birdies on his final three holes, including a 31-footer at the 18th to reach six-under 210. He has a two-shot edge over Rory McIlroy and Marc Leishman.

Leishman was one of seven players who managed to get around in even par, making two birdies and two bogeys. He’ll play in the final group alongside Hatton as he tries to win the API for the second time, his first coming in 2017. Leishman’s already won once in the 2019-’20 season at Torrey Pines.

“It was really tough,” said Leishman of Saturday’s carnage. “I actually added my score up, my scorecard up in the scorer’s hut there and kind of did a double-take. I added up to 72 and it felt like I shot a 65, not a 72. So, yeah, it was really tough. The greens were firm, fast. It was exactly how you wanted the golf course to play, really. Par was a great score and hopefully I can play like that again tomorrow.”

If not for an 18th hole bogey, McIlroy would be just one off the lead. He also shot 73, and like Leishman, has a chance to win his second API. The Northern Irishman won the even two years ago with a final-round 64.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Sungjae Im, Danny Lee and Harris English all sit in a tie for fourth at three-under 213.

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By Christopher Powers
The coronavirus is no laughing matter, something Edoardo Molinari found out the hard way last week prior to the European Tour’s Oman Open. Knowing a sibling is coming unglued over something out of their control, however, is always funny. So you’ll have to forgive Francesco Molinari getting in a laugh at his brother’s expense.

For those who missed it, Edoardo was one of two European Tour pros who were quarantined last Wednesday over fears they had contracted the virus. The other was Lorenzo Gagli, who had been exhibiting flu-like symptoms and examined by the tournament’s medical staff. Both players are from Italy, where the number of cases grow by the day, and they happened to be sharing a hotel room. Neither Molinari or Gagli were thrilled with the decision, but the precautionary measures taken by the European Tour were understandable.

Fortunately, Gagli’s tests came back negative, and the European Tour reinstated both players and sent them off in a twosome in the opening round. This was particularly beneficial for Gagli, who finished in a tie for 10th. Molinari tied for 50th.

Francesco understands the gravity of the situation in their home country, but he couldn’t help but chuckle when he thought about what his brother was going through. He explained why on Tuesday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, where he is the defending champion.

“I was laughing, actually,” said the 2018 Open champion. “If you know my brother, of all people, for it to happen to him, I don’t know, yeah, I just found it a little bit funny at the beginning. But then, obviously, I spoke to him and he was, I would say, more annoyed than scared because he was feeling well. He had no symptoms. But, yeah, joking aside, obviously being Italian it’s not a great time back home with the health situation and I don’t know, hopefully they can get it sorted somehow quickly.”

That’s the brother-brother relationship summed up right there. Francesco expanded on the coronavirus matter later in the press conference.

“I know as much as you, if not less, to be honest. We just follow, obviously, the directions that we’re given by the tour. So far, luckily, it doesn’t seem to have an impact on us directly. But, yeah, like I said, the first person — I wasn’t in Italy last week — but I was obviously reading the news and they cancelled football games, soccer games, which are huge over there and closed school, so it’s definitely having an impact there. Hopefully it won’t get to that stage over here.”

So far it hasn’t, with six reported deaths in the United States versus 52 in Italy. As for precautions being taken by the Tour, the organization released a statement on the coronavirus Monday.

“The PGA TOUR has been closely monitoring all available information related to the continued spread of the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19. We conduct more than 175 tournaments across our six Tours, and the health and safety of our players, employees, fans, partners, volunteers and everyone associated with the PGA TOUR continues to be our No. 1 priority.

“After reviewing the relevant positions from the Centers of Disease Control and the World Health Organization, there are no planned schedule changes beyond what has already been decided with PGA TOUR Series-China (a delay to the start of the season). However, we are establishing additional protocols to promote the health and safety of all participants and fans at our tournaments, and we will regularly review our schedule in light of revised CDC and WHO reports and make any updates as necessary.”

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By Daniel Rapaport
Tiger Woods will miss the Arnold Palmer Invitational for the second straight year in order to rest his body and continue training, sources told Golf Digest.

It’s a somewhat surprising announcement considering Woods’ history at Bay Hill—he’s won the event eight times, most recently in 2013.

Woods has not played in back-to-back weeks yet this year, and the Players Championship is the week after Bay Hill. Avoiding back-to-back starts was part of his decision to skip last week’s WGC-Mexico Championship the week after shooting 77-76 over the weekend at the Genesis Invitational to finish last among those making the cut.

“The idea is to peak around Augusta time,” Woods said about not playing in Mexico. “I just felt I wasn’t going to be ready for next week, a little rundown.”

Woods was scheduled to play in last year’s API before he withdrew before the tournament with a neck strain. He’s played in the tournament only once since that victory in 2013, finishing T-5 in 2018.

The rest of Woods’ pre-Masters schedule remains something of a mystery. It’s hard to imagine he would skip the Players Championship if healthy, and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play seems likely to be his final start before Augusta. Woods played five events last year in the lead-up to his 15th major victory; he has played only two so far this year, at Riviera and Torrey Pines, where he finished T-9.

Woods has not played PGA Tour events in back-to-back weeks since last August, when he pulled out of the Northern Trust after one round then finished T-37 at the BMW Championship.

“My prep has been just like it usually is,” Woods said on a conference call with reporters this week. “It’s what I need to do to get ready for the Masters.”

Woods, ranked 10th in the Official World Golf Ranking, will have to wait for his next opportunity to win a record 83rd PGA Tour title. He tied Sam Snead at 82 with a three-shot victory at the Zozo Championship in Japan last October.

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