ORLANDO, Fla. — Like iced tea and lemonade, Rory McIlroy and Bay Hill Club and Lodge are quite a combination.
An unbeatable one, McIlroy hopes, during this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.
An opening 7-under 65 was the latest display of McIlroy bullying Bay Hill, where he has five straight top-10 finishes including his 2018 win.
“You turn up at any golf course where you’ve had success, and automatically you’re going to have some confidence coming in,” McIlroy said. “I’ve shot some really nice scores here. I feel there’s a nice flow to this golf course where you can really build a score.”
The game’s best driver of the ball when he’s dialed in, McIlroy dominated the four par-5s, going 5-under Thursday, and led the field in strokes gained tee to green.
McIlory ended with a 2-shot lead over a trio of players who posted 67s, including Billy Horschel, who used to attend the API as a kid growing up on Florida’s Space Coast. Lake Nona residents Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter, 14-time winner Adam Scott and Will Zalatoris, a rising star seeking his first win, are among a contingent 3 shots back.
Poulter, a 46-year-old Englishman, donned a blue shirt and yellow pants, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, to show his support for the war-torn nation.
“It’s hard, when you flick the news on right now,” he said. “Obviously you see the devastation that’s going on around the world and you feel for the people in Ukraine, just wearing a similar color today in respect to those suffering over there is the least I can do.”
McIlroy, Poulter’s longtime Ryder Cup teammate, is another European star with a world view beyond the ropes. This week, though, the 32-year-old from Northern Ireland is focused on adding a second win at a place well suited to his game.
“It’s a drive-the-ball golf course, this one,” McDowell, a two-time API runner-up, said. “When Rory’s on with his driver, there’s no one better in the world. You can really kind of bring this course slightly to its knees.
“Not totally to its knees, but slightly if you drive it well here.”
Bay Hill was not quite its beastly self Thursday, but is sure to flex its muscle during the coming days.
“This is as easy as you’re going to see this place,” Zalatoris said. “No wind. This is the softest you’re going to see it. It’s good to get off to a good start, because you’re going to be behind the 8 ball. These greens are already baking out. They’re starting to get brown.
“It’s only going to get firmer and firmer.”
Firm, fast fairways and putting surfaces the past two years have kept scores in check.
Bryson DeChambeau’s winning score of 11-under in 2021 followed a 4-under winning score a year earlier by Tyrrell Hatton. Each time, the conditions proved to be McIlroy’s undoing following fast starts. In 2020 and 2021, he opened with 66s and closed with 76s.
Two shots in particular Thursday gave McIlroy belief he can keep his game on track.
Starting on the back nine, McIlroy followed a bogey on the par-4 11th hole with a routine birdie on the par-5 No. 12 following a 4-iron from 239 yards to 30 feet. Another flushed 4-iron — this time from 247 yards — set up a two-putt birdie from 40 feet the par-5 6th.
“They were probably two of the best long irons I hit in a while,” McIlroy said. “When I start hitting long irons like that, I know my swing’s in a pretty good place. Seeing shots like that certainly gives me some confidence.”
McIlroy remains as explosive as anyone on the PGA Tour when all cylinders are firing. Yet too often these days, he sputters down the stretch.
During the DP World Tour Championship in November, McIlroy’s final-round meltdown left him tearing apart his shirt after he squandered a 1-shot lead en route to a tie for sixth. Up by one with five holes remaining during January’s Dubai Desert Classic, McIlroy missed a playoff by 1 shot when he hit his 3-wood approach on the 18th hole into the water.
After posting his best score at Bay Hill since he closed with 64 to win in 2018, McIlroy hoped to reach Sunday with another chance to add to his 36 victories worldwide, including 20 on the PGA Tour.
“All you can ask of yourself is to keep putting yourself in those positions on Sundays, and then you see where your game really is,” McIlroy said. “Hopefully, this is another week where I put myself in a position where I can really see where my game is when the pressure’s on.”
