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Els Looks For Third Bay Hill Win

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By Scott MacLeod, via Flagstick Golf Magazine (www.flagstick.com)

It has been home to many incredible moments.  Just as its namesake struck countless monumental golf shots in his career fittingly his tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, has been witness to an endless parade of memorable occasions.

In recent times several of those came by the putter of Tiger Woods who has won six titles at Bay Hill Club and Lodge. In 2008 Tiger rolled in a 24-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to beat Bart Bryant by a stroke.  A year later he repeated the dramatic finish with a 12 foot birdie in the dark on the final hole to win by a stroke.

In the midst of an uncharacteristic win drought Tiger is back this week looking for win #7, one that he craves not to silence the doubters but to prove to himself that he is ready to compete for The Masters in two weeks.

But Tiger’s path to a win will be no easy one, as usual the field in Orlando in chalk full of talent including fifteen of the top twenty players in the FedEx Cup standings and eight of the top twenty from the official world golf rankings.

The #13 man on that chart also happens to be the defending champion this week and Ernie Els is not quite ready surrender the hand-crafted sword that is awarded to the victor.  Els, who also won this tournament in 1998, is quite comfortable at the club and on the heels of his charity tournament to benefit the Els for Autism Foundation on Monday, is raring to go.  He is trying to peak for Augusta but wants to prove he is ready now.

“I'm excited to come here,” said Els in addressing the media on Tuesday.   “We have got a great field. We are going to have great weather. So I think with Tiger in the field again, I see Phil is playing, we have got some really great players here, so it should be a great week.”

Playing into Els’ favor will be the weather that threatens to see temperatures hovering near 90 degrees most of the week.  That is an environment the South African is very comfortable in and he expects that it will prompt some good scoring conditions.  “So to play in heat will be great. The golf course will change. You're right there; it will play a lot firmer. I remember last year, even the greens were quite firm. Depends on if we have wind with warm weather, it will be really difficult, because the greens will get so difficult, and this course is quite long. Some of the holes are quite long, so you come into greens with a lot of wind and very firm greens; it could change your outlook on scoring. There's not too many birdie holes there. But I've not played a practice round. I've heard, my caddie walked it yesterday and he says the greens are really firm. If it there's no wind, the guys will find a way to score. I think scoring could be good this week.”

Among the other top ranked players that will join Tiger and Ernie this week will be Phil Mickelson, Graeme McDowell, Dustin Johnson, Jim Furyk, Bubba Watson, Ian Poulter, Jim Furyk and one who launched himself into the top shelf of the FedEx Cup race last week with a win at The Transitions Championship – Gary Woodland.

Woodland, who now lives in Orlando, says his last 48 hours after the victory have been hectic but that he is thoroughly focused on playing well this week at a course he admires and feels is a good fit for him.  I love the golf course. I think it suits me pretty well. I think you can use your length out here. I think it's a long golf course. I think it's a hard golf course and I'm really looking forward to staying at home this week and playing here.”

My pick of the week?  Got to be Scotsman Martin Laird.  Laird is coming off a tied for 5th at the Transitions and 10th at Doral.  He's wants another PGA Tour victory in a bad way and his length will help him immensely at Bay Hill.

Notes:

–          The last player in his 20s other than Tiger Woods to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational was Chad Campbell, who won the event just shy of his 30th birthday in 2004.

–          Since this tournament began in 1966 as the Florida Citrus Open, only three non-Americans have managed to win, including Ernie Els of South Africa in 1998 and 2010, Australian Rod Pampling in 2006 and Vijay Singh of Fiji in2007.

–          Since the start of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in 1966, only Fred Couples (1992) and Tiger Woods (2001 and 2002) have won the Masters and the Arnold Palmer Invitational in the same year.

2011 Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard

Dates: March 21-27, 2011

Where: Bay Hill Club and Lodge, Orlando, Florida

Par/Yards: 36-36—72/7,381

Field: 120

Format: 72-hole stroke play

Defending Champion: Ernie Els

Purse: $6,000,000; Winner’s Share: $1,080,000

This report provided to GolfWRX.com by Canada's Flagstick Golf Magazine (www.flagstick.com)

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Equipment

Spotted: Tommy Fleetwood’s TaylorMade Spider Tour X Prototype putter

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Tommy Fleetwood has been attached to his Odyssey White Hot Pro #3 putter for years now. However, this week at the Wells Fargo Championship, we did spot him testing a new putter that is very different, yet somewhat similar, to his current gamer.

This new putter is a TaylorMade Spider Tour X head but with a brand new neck we haven’t seen on a Spider before. A flow neck is attached to the Spider head and gives the putter about a 1/2 shaft offset. This style neck will usually increase the toe hang of the putter and we can guess it gets the putter close to his White Hot Pro #3.

Another interesting design is that lack of TaylorMade’s True Path alignment on the top of the putter. Instead of the large white center stripe, Tommy’s Spider just has a very short white site line milled into it. As with his Odyssey, Tommy seems to be a fan of soft inserts and this Spider prototype looks to have the TPU Pure Roll insert with 45° grooves for immediate topspin and less hopping and skidding.

The sole is interesting as well in that the rear weights don’t look to be interchangeable and are recessed deep into the ports. This setup could be used to push the CG forward in the putter for a more blade-like feel during the stroke, like TaylorMade did with the Spider X Proto Scottie Scheffler tested out.

Tommy’s putter is finished off with an older Super Stroke Mid Slim 2.0 grip in blue and white. The Mid Slim was designed to fit in between the Ultra Slim 1.0 and the Slim 3.0 that was a popular grip on tour.

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Equipment

Rickie Fowler’s new putter: Standard-length Odyssey Jailbird 380 in custom orange

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

…The Jailbird craze hasn’t really slowed down in 2024, either. According to Odyssey rep Joe Toulon, there are about 18-20 Jailbird putter users on the PGA TOUR.

Most recently, Akshay Bhatia won the 2024 Valero Texas Open using a broomstick-style Odyssey Jailbird 380 putter and Webb Simpson is switching into a replica of that putter at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Now, Fowler, who essentially started the whole Jailbird craze, is making a significant change to his putter setup.

Fowler, who has had a couple weeks off since the 2024 RBC Heritage, started experimenting with a new, custom-orange Jailbird 380 head that’s equipped with a standard 35-inch putter build, rather than his previous 38-inch counter-balanced setup.

According to Fowler, while he still likes the look and forgiveness of his Jailbird putter head, he’s looking to re-incorporate more feel into his hands during the putting stroke.

He told GolfWRX.com on Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Championship that the 38-inch counterbalanced setup “served its purpose” by helping him to neutralize his hands during the stroke, but now it’s time to try the standard-length putter with a standard-size SuperStroke Pistol Tour grip to help with his feel and speed control.

Although Fowler was also spotted testing standard-length mallets from L.A.B. Golf and Axis1 on Tuesday, he confirmed that the custom Odyssey Jailbird 380 is the putter he’ll use this week at the 2024 Wells Fargo Championship.

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

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Equipment

Details on Justin Thomas’ driver switch at the Wells Fargo Championship

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Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article. 

So, with a couple of weeks off following his latest start at the 2024 RBC Heritage, Thomas sought to re-address his driver setup with the remote help of Titleist Tour fitting expert J.J. Van Wezenbeeck. About two weeks ago, Thomas and Van Wezenbeeck reviewed his recent driver stats, and discussed via phone call some possible driver and shaft combinations for him to try.

After receiving Van Wezenbeeck’s personalized shipment of product options while at home, Thomas found significant performance improvements with Titleist’s TSR2 head, equipped with Thomas’ familiar Mitsubishi Diamana ZF 60 TX shaft.

Compared to Thomas’ longtime TSR3 model, the TSR2 has a larger footprint and offers slightly higher spin and launch characteristics.

According to Van Wezenbeeck, Thomas has picked up about 2-3 mph of ball speed, to go along with 1.5 degrees higher launch and more predictable mishits.

“I’d say I’d been driving it fine, not driving it great, so I just wanted to, honestly, just test or try some stuff,” Thomas said on Tuesday in an interview with GolfWRX.com at Quail Hollow Club. “I had used that style of head a couple years ago (Thomas used a TSi2 driver around 2021); I know it’s supposed to have a little more spin. Obviously, yeah, I’d love to hit it further, but if I can get a little more spin and have my mishits be a little more consistent, I felt like obviously that’d be better for my driving…

“This (TSR2) has been great. I’ve really, really driven it well the week I’ve used it. Just hitting it more solid, I don’t know if it’s the look of it or what it is, but just a little bit more consistent with the spin numbers. Less knuckle-ball curves. It has been fast. Maybe just a little faster than what I was using. Maybe it could be something with the bigger head, maybe mentally it looks more forgiving.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article. 

 

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