Arnold Palmer has never gone out of style and he never should.
Caps off when you step inside. The road to success is always under construction. That beautiful blend of iced tea and lemonade.
The late King’s memory will be front and center this week at his namesake Arnold Palmer Invitational at his beloved Bay Hill Club, a fixture on the PGA Tour’s Florida swing.
His golf bag will stand sentinel at one end of the practice tee. The umbrella logo will be as prevalent as spring flowers. Fans will queue up to have their photograph taken in front of the bronze statue of Arnie in full furious lash.
And, if Palmer’s spirit has any sway over what’s happening, Bay Hill will bring par back into style.
Palmer could rock a pink shirt like nobody’s business but he loved setting up Bay Hill in basic black. It is not, by nature, a charming golf course and when it gets the way Palmer wanted it, the API is a nice variation on a theme.
As good as the first two months of this PGA Tour season have been, one thing has gone missing – the relevance of par.
Blame it on the rain. Ask the wind why it prefers to whisper rather than howl most weeks. Tip a cap to the undeniable brilliance of the best players in the world who, between their physio sessions and Trackman readouts, see opportunity on every swing.
It’s not too much to ask for Bay Hill to have the rough be a menace, the greens crispy and the breeze strong enough to be annoying. No one wants that every week but it’s time to have a week where going low is replaced by grinding.
The highest winning score on tour thus far in 2026 has been 16-under at the Sony Open in Hawaii and the WM Phoenix Open. Those are good winning scores though some of us lean more into something around 12-under par being an ideal number.
That means shooting a couple of 68s doesn’t get a player run over and 64s and 63s aren’t as familiar as Starbucks stores.
Hawaii and Phoenix are the outliers so far.
Even PGA National, with its Stephen King-like dangers, has been muted by overseeded fairways and more forgiving rough. It’s the kind of place where, when the wind blows and it’s firm and fast, it could kill the dreams of a Florida golf getaway. In recent years, however, it has turned a benevolent page.
Scottie Scheffler won the American Express at 27-under par, a place where the tournament feels like a 72-hole drag race. No one complains about that because they know what they’re getting when they head to Palm Springs.
But 23-under par at Torrey Pines? Collin Morikawa shot 22-under par to win at Pebble Beach and had to keep his eyes on the rearview mirror the whole time. At rain-soaked Riviera, Jacob Bridgeman was 18-under par.
Billy Horschel said last week it’s as simple as the owners of PGA National wanting the course to look green and lush on television to attract golfers, even if it changes the challenge.
“I think when you look at the data, and I can pull it up on my phone, in ’20, ’21, ’22, there were three times in a row where it was a top-10 hardest golf course,”Horschel said. “I think it was like [No.] 4, 7, 6. Then it went to 12, and then the last two years it’s been in the 30s.”
Pick your culprit. Resort owners wanting more players. The PGA Tour wanting low scores because fans want to see birdies. The players wanting softer setups because they are, well, easier.
Tiger Woods won Arnold Palmer’s tournament eight times.
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It’s not as if fans go to NBA games to see players miss shots or to baseball games to watch Shohei Ohtani strike out. Offense sells. Watching a guy make four straight birdies tends to be more entertaining than watching him make four straight pars.
There is an argument to be made that the game has never been easier for the best players in the world. It wasn’t that long ago that the driver was the most difficult club in the bag to hit. Now, it may be the most forgiving.
Distance matters to most of us but not to PGA Tour players, unless it’s the par-3 fourth hole at Riviera, which was stretched to more than 270 yards as if it needed to be more challenging.
With all that is available to tour players – they can practically get MRIs on their full swing and their putting stroke – they have been able to maximize their skills. We are all trying to do that, if only in our dreams.
That’s why Bay Hill arrives at just the right time. The Players Championship, the tour’s version of tournament golf at the Sphere, is a week away, setting this up as one of the best two-week runs of the season.
There’s a reason why Tiger Woods won eight times at Bay Hill. It asked for more than birdies. They can be made there – Keegan Bradley shot 29 on the front side last year – but rewarding par gets reintroduced at Arnie’s place.
It’s one more reason why the winner’s walk up the hill behind the 18th green into Palmer’s firm handshake was so gratifying. It’s not just what you win but where you win and how you win.
Palmer died nearly 10 years ago but his presence endures at Bay Hill, a place where everyone is likely to be reminded this week that par still matters.
Top: The memory of the late Arnold Palmer, shown rocking a pink shirt, will be prevalent at Bay Hill.
SIMON BRUTY, Anychance Via Getty Images
