{"id":499723,"date":"2026-03-02T18:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/499723\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T18:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:39:08","slug":"signature-event-returns-to-bay-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/499723\/","title":{"rendered":"Signature Event Returns to Bay Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">As the Masters comes ever closer, the PGA Tour\u2019s best will gather again for a signature event.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">Three weeks ago was the AT&amp;T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and two weeks ago was Tiger Woods\u2019s Genesis Invitational, and after an unofficial week off (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/golf\/cognizant-classic-symbolizes-pga-tour-looming-changes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">though the Tour played on<\/a>), everyone in the top 20 in the world who is eligible will be at Arnold Palmer\u2019s Bay Hill Club in Orlando for the second \u201clegacy\u201d signature event of the year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">Like the Genesis, the Arnold Palmer Invitational is a limited-field event but with a cut, and a full 20% of the $20 million purse will go to the winner\u2014a cool $4 million (PGA Tour purses usually award 18% to the winner). Jacob Bridgeman claimed that big check in winning the Genesis for his first PGA Tour title.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">Bridgeman will be at Bay Hill along with every other winner so far this season, including world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who won the American Express in January and is a two-time champ at Arnie\u2019s place. World No. 2 Rory McIlroy, the 2018 winner, is looking for his first Tour win of the season as his Masters title defense is a little more than a month away.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6y\">Justin Thomas is also in the field, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/golf\/justin-thomas-return-pga-tour-after-surgery-low-expectations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">making his season debut<\/a> after recovering from back surgery.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"71\">Russell Henley is the defending champion, winning last year at 11 under par on what can be one of the Tour\u2019s tougher courses. McIlroy won his title at 18 under; Scheffler won his two at 15 under and 5 under. The tournament forecast appears dry and warm, meaning the 7,466-yard layout should play firmer and faster as the week goes on.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"74\">And all the top players will look to carry momentum into next week for the Players Championship up the road in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., where the Tour\u2019s flagship event pays $4.5 million to the winner from a $25 million purse.<\/p>\n<p>2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational full field<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7a\">72 players<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7d\">\u00c5berg, Ludvig<br \/>Bennett, Daniel +<br \/>Berger, Daniel<br \/>Bhatia, Akshay<br \/>Bradley, Keegan<br \/>Bridgeman, Jacob<br \/>Burns, Sam<br \/>Campbell, Brian<br \/>Cantlay, Patrick<br \/>Cauley, Bud<br \/>Conners, Corey<br \/>Coody, Pierceson<br \/>Dahmen, Joel<br \/>Day, Jason<br \/>Echavarria, Nico<br \/>English, Harris<br \/>Fitzpatrick, Matt<br \/>Fleetwood, Tommy<br \/>Fowler, Rickie<br \/>Fox, Ryan<br \/>Gerard, Ryan<br \/>Glover, Lucas<br \/>Griffin, Ben<br \/>Gotterup, Chris<br \/>Greyserman, Max +<br \/>Hall, Harry<br \/>Harman, Brian<br \/>Henley, Russell<br \/>Hisatsune, Ryo<br \/>Hoge, Tom<br \/>Hojgaard, Nicolai<br \/>Horschel, Billy +<br \/>Hovland, Viktor<br \/>Im, Sungjae<br \/>Kim, Michael<br \/>Kim, Si Woo<br \/>Kirk, Chris +<br \/>Kitayama, Kurt<br \/>Knapp, Jake<br \/>Lee, Min Woo<br \/>Lowry, Shane<br \/>MacIntyre, Robert<br \/>Matsuyama, Hideki<br \/>McCarthy, Denny<br \/>McCarty, Matt<br \/>McIlroy, Rory<br \/>McNealy, Maverick<br \/>Mitchell, Keith<br \/>Moore, Taylor<br \/>Morikawa, Collin<br \/>Noren, Alex<br \/>Novak, Andrew<br \/>Pendrith, Taylor<br \/>Poston, J.T.<br \/>Potgieter, Aldrich<br \/>Rodgers, Patrick<br \/>Rose, Justin<br \/>Schauffele, Xander<br \/>Scheffler, Scottie<br \/>Scott, Adam<br \/>Smotherman, Austin<br \/>Spaun, J.J.<br \/>Spieth, Jordan +<br \/>Stevens, Sam<br \/>Straka, Sepp<br \/>Taylor, Nick<br \/>Theegala, Sahith<br \/>Thomas, Justin<br \/>Thorbjornsen, Michael<br \/>Vegas, Jhonattan<br \/>Young, Cameron<\/p>\n<p>+ Sponsor exemption<\/p>\n<p>More Golf from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Masters comes ever closer, the PGA Tour\u2019s best will gather again for a signature event. Three&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-499723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}