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The First Look
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Russell Henley’s winning highlights from Arnold Palmer Invitational
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Written by Adam Stanley
The PGA TOUR continues its Florida Swing with a trip north from West Palm Beach to Orlando for the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard.
This week marks another Signature Event on the PGA TOUR schedule with all of the TOUR’s biggest names back in action – highlighted by a pair of returns in Justin Thomas and Sungjae Im.
Russell Henley will defend his title while Scottie Scheffler, who has won at Bay Hill twice in the last four years, returns to a happy hunting ground.
Here’s everything else you need to know with the TOUR heading to Bay Hill.
FIELD NOTES: Justin Thomas returns to the PGA TOUR for the first time since having microdiscectomy surgery in November 2025. The 16-time TOUR winner teed it up for Atlanta Drive at TGL on Feb. 23 but hasn’t hit a ball in a tournament environment since the Ryder Cup in September. Thomas finished seventh in the FedExCup standings last season thanks to his victory at the RBC Heritage – his first since 2022. Thomas’ best finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational came in 2024 when he finished tied for 12th. … Sungjae Im is also making his season debut. Im, whose last start on TOUR was the Baycurrent Classic in October where he finished tied for 20th, has been recovering from a wrist injury. … Scottie Scheffler is back in action after his incredible streak of 18 straight top-10 finishes was broken at The Genesis Invitational (alas, he finished tied for 12th), but Bay Hill has been a solid spot for Scheffler in his career. He’s never finished outside the top 25 in five starts and has won the event twice – in 2022 and 2024. … Russell Henley is looking to become the first golfer in a decade to go back-to-back at Bay Hill. The last to successfully defend their title at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was Matt Every, who won in 2014-15. … All of the top-10 ranked golfers in the OWGR (in fact, all of the top-20 ranked golfers), led by Scheffler, are in the field this week, including world No. 2 Rory McIlroy, who won at Bay Hill in 2018 and helped lead Boston Common Golf to the No. 1 seed heading into the TGL playoffs after Boston defeated Jupiter Links GC on Monday night 7-6 in overtime at the SoFi Center . … Jacob Bridgeman, who leads the FedExCup standings after his win at The Genesis Invitational – the most recent Signature Event on the schedule – is back in action along with last week’s winner Nico Echavarria, who won the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches after a late stumble by Shane Lowry.… Beyond those who earned their way in via the Aon Next 10 and Aon Swing 5, other late additions to the field include Alex Noren – who finished tied for 12th at The Genesis Invitational and is ranked inside the top 20 in the OWGR – along with Michael Thorbjornsen and Joel Dahmen, who get a spot in the field thanks to their current rankings in the FedExCup standings. Thorbjornsen is No. 42 while Dahmen, who has two top 10s in his last four starts, including Sunday at the Cognizant Classic, is No. 43.
HIGHEST-RANKED PLAYERS IN THE FIELDFedExCupWorld Ranking1. Jacob Bridgeman1. Scottie Scheffler2. Chris Gotterup2. Rory McIlroy3. Scottie Scheffler3. Tommy Fleetwood4. Collin Morikawa4. Justin Rose5. Jake Knapp5. Collin Morikawa6. Nico Echavarria6. Chris Gotterup7. Ryan Gerard7. Russell Henley8. Hideki Matsuyama8. Robert MacIntyre9. Si Woo Kim9. J.J. Spaun10. Min Woo Lee10. Xander Schauffele
SPONSOR EXEMPTIONS: Jordan Spieth is back in action on the PGA TOUR after finishing tied for 12th at The Genesis Invitational, which was his best result since last year’s Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. Spieth last played the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2024 when he finished tied for 30th. But in 2021 and 2023 he finished T4. … Billy Horschel returns to Bay Hill hoping to break a run of back-to-back missed cuts at the venue. While Horschel had an early exit in both 2025 and 2023, he finished runner-up in 2022. … Chris Kirk is in the field on a sponsor exemption after putting together a fairly impressive body of work at Bay Hill. Kirk has four top-15 finishes at this event in his last seven starts and notched a top-25 finish last season. … Max Greyserman also received a sponsor exemption after finishing tied for 22nd at Bay Hill last year in his tournament debut. Greyserman comes into the week after back-to-back top 25s on TOUR.
Texas sophomore Daniel Bennett will make his PGA TOUR debut after he was the recipient of the Palmer Cup Award at last summer’s Palmer Cup, where he was part of the winning Team International squad. Bennett, 20, became the fifth University of Texas player to earn the Phil Mickelson Award as the nation’s top freshman (Scottie Scheffler also won the award in 2015), and South African native made it to the Round of 16 at last year’s U.S. Amateur.
SIGNATURE EVENT STORYLINES: Thanks to his best career PGA TOUR finish with a T2 at the Cognizant Classic, Austin Smotherman earned his way into a Signature Event for the first time via the Aon Next 10. … Also punching their tickets to Bay Hill via their results at PGA National include Nicolai Højgaard (who finished tied for sixth and topped the Aon Swing 5 list), Taylor Moore (T2) and Keith Mitchell (who also finished T6 and earned the fifth and final spot by just over one point over Joel Dahmen). … Nico Echavarria, who won the Cognizant Classic for his third career TOUR title, moved from No. 15 to No. 2 in the Aon Next 10 list thanks to his victory. … The next Signature Event on the PGA TOUR schedule is the RBC Heritage in mid-April. The Aon Swing 5 standings for that event start with the Puerto Rico Open and continue through the Valspar Championship, Texas Children’s Houston Open and Valero Texas Open. … The Aon Next 10 for the RBC Heritage is picked from the current FedExCup standings through the Masters Tournament.
FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 700 FedExCup points.
COURSE: Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge, par 72, 7,466 yards. Bay Hill will once again host the Arnold Palmer Invitational, with 2026 marking its 48th time doing so. It’s a mostly flat layout but features water challenges on most holes and demands a high level of ball-striking and shot-making in order to score well. It’s been as testy a venue as any on the PGA TOUR – with the past nine Arnold Palmer Invitational events featuring scoring averages of over par.
72-HOLE RECORD: 264, Payne Stewart (1987)
18-HOLE RECORD: 62, Andy Bean (Round 2, 1981), Greg Norman (Round 2, 1984), Adam Scott (Round 1, 2014).
LAST TIME: Russell Henley made an eagle on the par-5 16th at Bay Hill on Sunday – which was ultimately the difference-maker – as he topped Collin Morikawa by one to win the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational. Henley was 2 over after six holes but started to claw his way back after making the turn, making birdies on Nos. 12 and 14 before adding the eagle on 16. Morikawa, meanwhile, opened with a birdie on the par-4 first at Bay Hill but couldn’t get anything going through the balance of Sunday’s finale. He missed a 12-foot par putt on No. 14, which was his ultimate undoing. Corey Conners finished one shot back of Morikawa at 9 under to finish third alone, while Michael Kim finished at 8 under and was solo fourth.
How to watch (all times ET)
Special programming alerts:
Monday: “The Drop,” 7 p.m., Golf ChannelWednesday: “On the Range,” 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Golf Channel TGL regular season finale:Monday, 7 p.m.: TGL Match 14, Los Angeles vs. New York, ESPN2, ESPN AppTuesday, 9 p.m.: TGL Match 15, The Bay vs. Jupiter Links, ESPN, ESPN AppPGA TOUR LIVE Betcast presented by DraftKings: Get your betting coverage and analysis for the Arnold Palmer Invitational on ESPN+ throughout the week for an all-day, watch-and-bet experience for golf fans.Friday: 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m.Saturday-Sunday: 9 a.m.-6 p.m.Thursday-Friday: 2-6 p.m., Golf ChannelSaturday-Sunday: 12:30-2:30 p.m., Golf Channel; 2:30-6 p.m., NBC, PeacockThursday-Friday: 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m.Saturday-Sunday: 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
PGA TOUR LIVE is available exclusively on ESPN+ and consists of four streams:
Main feed (Stream 1): Primary tournament coverage featuring the best action from across the courseMarquee group (Stream 2): New “Marquee group” showcasing every shot from each player in the groupFeatured groups (Stream 3): Traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groupsBetcast presented by DraftKings (Stream 4): Betting coverage and analysis throughout the weekThursday-Friday: noon-6 p.m.Saturday-Sunday: 1-6 p.m.*:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-11jnzpa>img,.css-11jnzpa>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-11jnzpa::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:66.66666666666666%;}]]>
Mar 2, 2026
The First Look: Precious points up for grabs as TOUR heads to Puerto RicoThe First Look
