The Five: Key subplots at Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard

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Golf is Hard at Bay Hill

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Written by Paul Hodowanic

The first leg of a formidable two-event stretch begins this week at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, perennially one of the toughest tests on the PGA TOUR. The elite field will be vying for Arnold Palmer’s tournament while also prepping for THE PLAYERS Championship next week.

Ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, we compiled five of those subplots that will be particularly interesting to follow at Bay Hill this week. Here they are:

Scottie Scheffler’s first round

They say stroke play golf is a marathon not a sprint, but given Scottie Scheffler’s year thus far, it would do him well to set a strong opening pace at Bay Hill.

The undisputed top player in the world is battling a confounding trend in the early goings of 2026 and it’s hampered a very feasible opportunity to win nearly every event he’s played. In short, he isn’t starting well at all. It’s not up to his standards or that of an average TOUR pro. Here’s a quick refresher on Scheffler’s struggles in the first round. This is his scoring average and rank on TOUR per round.

Round 1: 70.50 (117th)Round 2: 65.75 (first)Round 3: 67.00 (eighth)Round 4: 64.50 (second)

The numbers confirm what our eyes have shown. Scheffler has lived up to his world No. 1 rank for 75% of every golf tournament – but he’s failed to get off the bus repeatedly the last two months. He shot 73 to open the WM Phoenix Open, 10 shots back of the lead. He shot 72 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, 10 shots back of the lead. He shot 74 at The Genesis Invitational, eight shots back of the lead. He made valiant attempts at winning in Phoenix and Pebble Beach, nearly completing the comeback and adding to his well-earned lore. He couldn’t quite replicate the same in Los Angeles, but still finished in a tie for 12th.

All this isn’t to say Scheffler is playing badly. It’s a testament to his greatness that we’ve noticed this trend at all. But as the TOUR returns to Scheffler’s territory – Bay Hill, TPC Sawgrass and Augusta National, where he’s won a combined six times – he will continue to face more scrutiny for his starts. Let’s see if he can change it.

It’s hard to sugarcoat Lowry’s finish at PGA National. He led comfortably with three holes to play, needing only to hit it anywhere but the water on the closing stretch to secure his first individual TOUR win since The Open Championship in 2019.

Instead, he floated a 3-iron into the water on the 16th and hit another poor shot into the water on the 17th to make back-to-back double bogeys and lose the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches. How does he respond?

Shane Lowry falls from Cognizant Classic lead after finishing Bear Trap with double-double

Well, as Lowry acknowledged, he will know quickly. The TOUR rolls on. Lowry has a Thursday tee time at Bay Hill, and given his current form and course history, he should expect a lot from himself. But what is needed, and still unknown, is hard to quantify: his mental strength. Lowry will need a lot of it to put behind the scar tissue he amassed last week.

“I have no choice but to move on,” Lowry said.

If he can, this profiles as another great opportunity for Lowry. He’s finished seventh and third in his last two starts at Bay Hill. And he already has two top 10s in three starts this season on TOUR, along with a T3 finish in Dubai in January on the DP World Tour.

Justin Thomas and Sungjae Im’s return

This week marks the return of two of the TOUR’s best iron players: Thomas and Im.

Thomas hasn’t played since the Ryder Cup last September. He underwent a microdiscectomy in November to address a disc issue that caused nagging pain for several months. Meanwhile, Im hasn’t played since October with a wrist injury.

Both face pivotal seasons ahead. Im is attempting to bounce back after a shaky second half of 2025, in which he failed to register a top 10 after the Masters in April. It’s particularly crucial this year with the Presidents Cup looming in September. Im is expected to be one of the International Team’s stars, which desperately needs contributions from its stable of veterans.

On the other side, Thomas is trying to maintain the momentum he cultivated in 2025. After going winless for several seasons, Thomas finally got back in the winner’s circle at the RBC Heritage and finished runner-up three other times, thanks to a career putting year. How will a significant back injury alter the trajectory of his career? It would be a shame for Thomas to go through another lull right after he pulled himself out of one. That will be the challenge he faces for the rest of the season.

Justin Thomas drains birdie putt to win RBC Heritage

Viktor Hovland’s driver

Hovland’s start to 2026 has been middling – one top-10 finish at the WM Phoenix Open alongside two non-competitive weeks at Pebble Beach and Riviera, outside the top 40 in both.

That’s far from reason to panic, though there is an interesting trend developing in one major part of Hovland’s game: he’s struggling off the tee. You don’t need to look at the numbers to know that. Just head to the driving range after any Hovland round and you’ll see the 28-year-old grinding to find a solution, staying out well past a typical post-round, cool-down session. He’s testing multiple drivers mid-week, trying new training aids and searching for answers.

Now, let’s add the stats in. Hovland ranks 139th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee so far this season. He’s lost strokes in two of the three events he’s played, though notably he was positive at The Genesis Invitational, a sign for optimism entering this week. But push the scope further back and the problem persists. He’s lost strokes off the tee in eight of his last 15 events. Contrast that to 2023, the year he won the TOUR Championship, when Hovland lost strokes off the tee just once all year long.

Now Hovland heads to Bay Hill, an event that prioritizes strong driving. It will be a litmus test on whether all his recent hard work has yielded meaningful change.

Viktor Hovland drives 216 yards to 10 feet, makes birdie on No. 4 at The Genesis

Billy Horschel’s progress

Into the field on a sponsor exemption, it’s time for Hoschel to show signs of improvement. Following the hip injury that kept him out for the majority of 2025, he’s played in every event of 2026 but one, yet has only one finish inside the top 45 and has missed a pair of cuts. That has him outside the top 100 of the FedExCup and outside the top 80 in the world.

There’s no need to sound the alarm bells yet fully. The Florida Swing will tell us a lot. Horschel has called this his favorite stretch of the calendar, and for good reason. The 39-year-old Floridian is comfortable on bermudagrass, his home club is TPC Sawgrass, and he has notable results at PGA National, Bay Hill and Innisbrook. That didn’t yield a worthwhile finish at the Cognizant Classic last week, but Horschel still has three more events to start his turnaround.

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The Five: Key subplots at Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard

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