Scottie Scheffler is nicely poised at one under par after his opening round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and he’s been having his say on course conditions.
The world number one is still searching for his first win of the season after his record breaking 2024 and looked in good shape in tough conditions around Bay Hill.
A fierce wind made the early scoring hard for players and Scheffler was among those out in the morning groups battling away.
In the end, conditions eased in the afternoon and Wyndham Clark managed a five-under par round to top the leaderboard ahead of Shane Lowry.
Lowry is at three-under along with a number of others and speaking about the scoring, Scheffler admitted that Lowry’s score was the maximum he could have hoped for himself.
Scottie Scheffler ‘proud’ of his opening round at the Arnold Palmer
Scheffler was speaking to the media after his opening round and conceded that the tough conditions meant that anything around three-under was the best anyone could have hoped for.
“I would definitely have expected that this morning,” Scheffler admitted.
“We’ll see what happens with the wind this afternoon but coming out early, with it being cold and the wind being stronger than it is right now it was definitely pretty challenging, so we’ll see how it develops.
“But overall, you know I’m proud of the score I put up and we’ll get some lighter winds today and hopefully I can put up something good.”
Scottie Scheffler says what people don’t realise about Bay Hill from watching on TV
While the winds were obvious for anyone watching the coverage in front of their televisions, not everything was that clear.
Indeed, Scheffler explained why the different levels of firmness in both the greens and fairways made things really tricky.
“I would say one of the things that’s interesting that you may not see on TV is what is so challenging is if you’re trying to run the ball up, a lot of the fairways are really soft but the greens are like concrete so it can be really challenging to get the ball close to the hole, especially if you’re not coming from out of the fairway,” he said.
“I think of the shot I hit, I drove it in the rough on maybe five, and I landed it exactly where I wanted to, and the ball just lands and just doesn’t release at all. And if I landed it another couple of yards and it lands on the green, it’s probably over the green. It’s just one of those things that you’ve got to stay patient on the golf course. It’s really hard and there’s a lot of stuff that can frustrate you out there, but just try and stay in it.”
With Scheffler just four back of the leader and conditions set to improve, the world’s top player will be hoping to kick on and post a big score ahead of the weekend.
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