ORLANDO, FLORIDA | Even wearing the red cardigan and seeing the silver trophy topped by a statuette of Arnold Palmer finishing his slashing golf swing sitting on a table in front of him, Russell Henley was coming to grips with what he had done.
“It’s still surreal wearing this up here,” Henley said early Sunday evening, looking at the latest addition to his wardrobe, a collector’s piece that goes to the winner of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
For the longest time on Sunday, the Arnold Palmer Invitational looked and felt like Collin Morikawa’s tournament to win, but golf, having a mind of its own, decided otherwise.
While Morikawa left feeling gutted (it’s a fair assumption considering he led by two with five holes remaining but declined to talk about the finish when he was done), Henley had the biggest victory of his career, elevating himself to seventh in the world in the process.
“I don’t feel like I’m a top 10 player,” Henley said, sounding like he meant it where others might sound less sincere if they ever considered saying such a thing.
While Henley may rank among the tour leaders in modesty, it mirrors his tenacity which carried him at Bay Hill, a place that often feels like it rewards players who can take punches as well as deliver them.
Some events feel like drag races to the finish, in others the leaderboard bounces around like lottery balls waiting to be selected. The Arnold Palmer Invitational is a four-day, 72-hole grind that finds a survivor on Sunday afternoon.
That was Henley.
There may be no harder course on the PGA Tour than Bay Hill, with its ankle-deep tangle of rough and greens that turn various shades of brown-green as they bake out over the weekend.
On Sunday he bogeyed both front-nine par-5s – the no-no of no-nos – but managed to overcome his mistakes. A brilliant 5-iron set up a birdie at the par-3 14th to get him within one of Morikawa, then a chip-in eagle from across the green at the par-5 16th was the end-of-day twist few saw coming.
Henley didn’t crack a smile when the eagle chip hammered the flagstick and fell in.
“I didn’t feel like there was much to smile about at that point, just because if I go to the next hole and hit it in the water and then hit it in the water again on 18, then I’m not sitting here,” Henley, ever the realist, said.
There may be no harder course on the PGA Tour than Bay Hill, with its ankle-deep tangle of rough and greens that turn various shades of brown-green as they bake out over the weekend. It’s a place that promotes defense as much as offense and there is an air of understanding that is how Mr. Palmer wanted it to be.
Probably so, but watching players chop chip shots out of 4-inch rough when they’re a foot off the putting surface gets tiresome while forcing everyone to play the same shot.
In theory, it rewards long hitters and, perhaps more than that, it rewards high-ball hitters because the greens tend to be so firm, yet Henley is neither of those things.
But firm and fast conditions make shorter hitters longer and Henley has a self-belief he lacked not long ago.
“I don’t know that I would have felt like I could win three or four years ago,” said Henley, who played on his first Presidents Cup team last fall.
Henley has spent time watching the players he’s trying to beat on YouTube, studying what they do well and how they do it “because they’re beating me.”
Not at Bay Hill they weren’t.
It was a week when Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy existed on the edge of contention, their B games reinforcing how good their A games can be, though both left Arnie’s place thinking more about what they need at this week’s Players Championship than what they left behind at Bay Hill.
Scheffler was back to his old ways, leading the event in strokes gained off the tee while McIlroy, who had that distinction in his first two starts this season, decided to try a new driver and it lasted three days before he put his old reliable back in the bag.
The fact that he didn’t hole many putts didn’t trouble Scheffler.
“It was really challenging out there on these greens,” Scheffler said. “I mean, putting on a surface that’s practically dead, the ball can have a life of its own.”
Though Scheffler pulled off the double last year, following his API victory by becoming the first back-to-back winner in Players Championship history, the difference in Bay Hill and the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass may be bigger than the 146 miles separating them.
“They’re two completely different tests,” McIlroy said. “The rough isn’t quite as thick next week. It’s going to be quite a lot softer, so … they’re not super similar. They’re both in Florida, but that’s about it.”
The Players Championship looms large. On the Sunday telecast of the API, a promo box popped up reminding viewers the Players Championship was just four days away, even as a signature event was being played.
Henley goes there this week in a different place. His victory at Bay Hill reinforced the evolution in his game, fueled in part by his work with putting coach Phil Kenyon. The fruits of his work showed in the T5 (AT&T Pebble Beach), T6 (Cognizant Classic) and T10 (Sony Open in Hawaii) that preceded his 2025 breakthrough.
If he hasn’t always believed he can win, Henley proved it Sunday at a place that asks hard questions.
“Because I just feel like there’s so many amazing players out here that are so talented, I haven’t really put a lot of pressure on myself to win, I’ve just tried to focus on trying to be really, really good at what I’m good at,” Henley said.
If Henley has any lingering doubts about how good he can be, he has the red cardigan and silver trophy to remind him.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Russell Henley (left) and Collin Morikawa pay respects on No. 18.
JOE ROBBINS, ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES