{"id":517928,"date":"2026-03-06T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517928\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T10:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T10:12:12","slug":"scottie-scheffler-avoids-slow-start-opens-under-par-at-arnold-palmer-invitational-with-new-driver-in-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/517928\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottie Scheffler avoids slow start, opens under par at Arnold Palmer Invitational with new driver in play"},"content":{"rendered":"

13H AGO<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Scottie Scheffler birdies par-5 fourth at Arnold Palmer<\/p>\n

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Written by Alistair Cameron<\/p>\n

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 Questions were being asked. Scottie Scheffler answered. <\/p>\n

Scheffler opened the first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard in a respectable 2-under 70, his first under-par opening round since the sensational 63 at The American Express, in his first start and win of the season. <\/p>\n

At first, many thought the 2-over 73 at the WM Phoenix Open was just a blip. Still, when Scheffler followed it up with an even par 72 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and then an even more uncharacteristic 3-over 74 at The Genesis Invitational, many were wondering if this was becoming a trend. <\/p>\n

Scheffler was quick to dispel any doubt that many would feel in his shoes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not too concerned over a very small sample size,\u201d the world No. 1 said Wednesday at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. <\/p>\n

Scheffler came out of the blocks firing to start his round on Thursday at a blustery Bay Hill, taking dead-aim at the pin on the first hole and rolling in the putt shortly after for birdie. He added a birdie at the par-5 fourth, before two more on the back nine coming at Nos. 13 and 16. <\/p>\n

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Scottie Scheffler makes birdie on par-5 16th at Arnold Palmer<\/p>\n

His round wasn\u2019t without its errors, though, which Scheffler was first to admit. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I did some really good things, I felt like I made a couple mistakes that I shouldn’t have,\u201d Scheffler said post-round. <\/p>\n

He dropped a shot after a three-putt on the par-4 fifth hole, after an iron shot left him above the hole on already slick greens, and then another atypical approach at the par-15th, saw him long off the green, which left a tricky up-and-down<\/p>\n

But as Scheffler noted following the round, \u201cAnything under par on this golf course is a decent score.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scheffler did his best work off the tee at a course that puts a premium on finding the short stuff. Bay Hill greens-in-regulation percentage from the rough sits at just 42.3%, well below the TOUR average of 51.6%. At the end of his round, Scheffler had gained over half a stroke on the field, doing so with a new driver in the bag, switching into TaylorMade\u2019s Qi4D driver. <\/p>\n

Scheffler tested the Qi4D driver towards the end of last year at Tiger Woods\u2019 Hero World Challenge, but had reverted to his older ways. He played the Qi10 version to start the year and surprised many when the new driver in the bag in Orlando. It’s not the first time Scheffler has made an equipment change at Bay Hill. It’s notoriously known as the first tournament Scheffler used his game-changing TaylorMade Spider putter. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like what we have seen is more consistent spin numbers,\u201d Scheffler said on the driver switch. \u201cSo that will help it be a little bit more accurate off the tee. Directionally, I struggled a little bit with it at the start of the year, but I got to what I thought was a really good spot last week, and I liked what I saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although at the time Scheffler finished his opening round, he was already seven shots back of Daniel Berger\u2019s blistering 63 to start the tournament, with the Thursday woes firmly in the rear view mirror, be prepared for Scheffler to be driving up the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon. <\/p>\n

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Mar 4, 2026<\/p>\n

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\"Panasonic\"\"Image<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"13H AGO 3 Min Read Latest *: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-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Scottie Scheffler birdies par-5 fourth at Arnold Palmer *:not(style)~*:not(style){margin-top:0.5rem;-webkit-margin-end:0px;margin-inline-end:0px;margin-bottom:0px;-webkit-margin-start:0px;margin-inline-start:0px;}]]> A Change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-517928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}