Continue the florida swing at bay hill this coming week. This is a true test of golf even for these guys, and an event i always look forward to. This place plays very hard and we rarely see a winning score over 12 under par. Bay hill is a flat par 72 parklands course that measures out quite long at 7,466 yards. It is yet another florida style course with quite a bit of water danger on 9 holes and heavily bunkered. This is always a very firm and fast course and ill certainly be looking for guys that play well in firm conditions. One of the biggest defenses of this course is the incredibly thick rough around the fairways, you will be very much penalized for missing fairways at this venue. The length of this course in addition to this thick rough makes total driving very advantageous. There may not be another course on tour where you can gain this big of an edge off of being long and straight off the tee. I will absolutely be looking for formidable total drivers of the ball here. Its probably the toughest test from tee to green on the pga tour when you mix in the fact that these bermuda greens are extremely firm and fast, making it very difficult to hold greens on approaches. Particularly when trying to do it from the thick rough. These factors are what make this place so difficult. There will be a mix of middle irons and long irons, but an emphasis on long iron approaches with many coming from 200+ yards. Add in the fact that this is an area of the country where it gets very windy, and its no surprise how difficult this place plays. Bay hill has rated out as the 3rd toughest course on tour to gain strokes on approach. I will definitely want formidable long iron players here, but the ability to scramble will obviously be important as well given the difficulty of keeping the ball on the green surface. The around the green areas here used to be short grass, but were converted to very thick rough a few years back which makes it a little easier to scramble around here but certainly not easy due to the green speed. Putting is not something i weigh very heavy in general, but especially not here given the added importance of tee to green skill. This is far from a birdie fest, which lessens the importance of draining a bunch of putts. If anything ill look at guys that have had some success putting on firm and fast greens, but ill largely be ignoring putting stats in exchange for a heavy emphasis on tee to green play. So to recap, The ideal model of golfer you want here is long and straight off of the tee, good middle-long iron players, and the ability to scramble around the greens. Some ancillary stuff that id like to see are guys who have played well on these long difficult tests with thick rough. These courses for me include Muirfield village, Oak Hill, Torrey Pines, Quail Hollow, and Riviera. These courses all emphasize tee to green skill above all else, thus you will see many of the same names at the top of the leaderboard. The guys that make the most sense to me without stating the obvious favorites at the top of the board that i conveniently ignore every week in rory mcllroy/scottie scheffler/Xander (I just cant get myself to bet guys at 10-1 and below in a pga tour event) include names like Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Aberg, Patrick Cantlay, Keegan Bradley, Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, and Will Zalatoris. Still have some research to do but will be back in a few as i am about to fire on 1 or 2
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