ORLANDO, Fla. — You want to talk about inspiration and motivation? It was oozing from everywhere when Olympia High’s Eric Cole teed off for the first time at The Arnold Palmer Invitational on Thursday.
It seemed the emotion emanated from every blade of Bermuda grass on every green at Bay Hill; every grain of sand in every bunker; every leaf on every oak tree lining every fairway throughout the breathtaking 270 acres on the shores of the Butler Chain of Lakes.
After all, Cole grew up playing on this course when his mother remarried a lawyer who was a member at Bay Hill. He caddied the tournament when his boyhood buddy Sam Saunders — Arnold Palmer’s grandson — played in it. He even won the member-guest club championship here as a 16-year-old.
