Just as the west coast swing built nicely towards a Riviera crescendo, a weak Honda Classic is now followed by a strong Arnold Palmer Invitational, with an almighty PLAYERS Championship to come. The hope is that selections on these pages manage to follow a similar path, after a frankly rotten set at PGA National where Alex Noren thankfully undid most of the damage.
The Arnold Palmer hasn't always managed to get the world's best, and there are still some Floridaphobes who will seemingly only turn up for Sawgrass, but the sport's top-ranked player is joined by its number one (playing) draw, so there can be no complaints this time. For Jon Rahm it's a tournament debut; for Rory McIlroy, a return to one of his most comfortable haunts, where four years ago he spectacularly rebounded from an indifferent spell to win.
The gap between these two in the betting is narrow, reflecting that course edge which McIlroy boasts, the consistency he's found, and the underwhelming nature of Rahm's play so far this year. Quite simply he's slowly regressed since an excellent start in Hawaii and while there's no cause for alarm, his short-game and strike-rate suggest we're better off looking elsewhere – even if he's almost the price he was in a far better field in LA.
With those two beatable as McIlroy continues to struggle with his approaches, I think I might be a little more troubled by the prospect of seeing either Scottie Scheffler or Viktor Hovland getting off to strong starts, or indeed both, and the former was close to making the staking plan. As Hovland has demonstrated, when a world-class player gets on a roll wins can multiply, and Scheffler's tee-to-green brilliance here in 2020 suggests he could soon follow up.
He will have plenty of backers but I'm content to try and get the next cab off the rank with WILL ZALATORIS considered the best bet here at around the 30/1 mark.
Zalatoris came very close to pipping Scheffler to the post and winning the Farmers in February, just his second start back following a prolonged break, and on the back of that was sent off at around the 28/1 mark for the Genesis Invitational.
Some might see 26th at Riviera as a disappointing effort but it was always possible he'd suffer a post-Farmers hangover especially as he'd missed Pebble Beach with Covid and to finish where he did, in an elite field, without driving the ball well, has to be taken as a positive on balance.
Casey was running on fumes towards the end of last year but his game is back now, with four top-25s in as many starts to begin 2022. It's by no means spectacular form, given that one of these was a low-key Singapore Open, but his fundamentals are firing and his approach play has been particularly strong.
Having been on my list for Riviera, a course he's very fond of, the key question I couldn't answer concerned his caddie, with John McLaren taking a period of indefinite leave. We now know that Casey has opted for a familiar face in Shannon Wallis, who had looped for him before and with some success, the pair finishing fifth in the 2017 Travelers when 'Johnny Long Socks' needed a week off.
Over the last few months all parts of his game have fired separately but seldom together, though it wouldn't have taken much more from the putter to get him into a play-off for the Wyndham or indeed the BMW PGA.
Another who used to call Florida home, his record in this event shows five top-10 finishes and on four occasions he's been bang in the mix entering the final round. It's plainly a good test for him and, like most of my selections, the fact that he boasts a towering ball flight is ideal when conditions are calm, as there are plenty of mid-to-long irons which is somewhat rare in the sport these days.
Since missing the cut on his debut here, Bradley has made nine out of nine and while like Rose his best form is dated (3rd in 2013, 2nd in 2014), he was the halfway leader in 2019 and fourth through 54 holes last year.
Straightforwardly, this is one of Bradley's favourite PGA Tour stops and having won a major, as well as at Firestone and in some brutal Texas winds during his rookie season, tougher tests have always been best for a quality driver of the ball.
"I'm very comfortable on this course, it fits my eye well," he said once, later professing his love for both course and tournament, and his form right now looks much stronger than was the case when finishing 10th here last year, after he'd gone MC-MC-22-60 to begin the campaign.
This time around he's made all four cuts, sitting close to the places at halfway in Phoenix and at Riviera, and a tweak to his putting technique has shown flashes of encouragement. With one of the best adjusted scoring averages in the field among those who've been regular visitors, if we can get a few to drop he can be right in the mix once more.
Munoz is simply hitting the ball superbly, with three top-five tee-to-green displays in his last five outings, including each of his last two. He started well and maintained a high level of ball-striking here last year and looks a better fit than course form figures of MC-49 might imply.
Historically, Munoz has been a good putter on bermuda and the last time he was on it, he ranked 19th at the RSM Classic. That and the fact his sole win came on similar greens in Jackson bodes well, and I like that it followed an excellent tee-to-green display at the Greenbrier.
The best driver in a world-class field last time, his ball-striking on a par with winner Joaquin Niemann and not far off Young's, Munoz might be the latest to benefit from the move from west to east and contend for the biggest title of his career.
As with Munoz, Ortiz secured his first when his approaches had been good, improving his putting for a switch to bermuda, and the fact he did so on a very difficult course in Houston and at the expense of world-class rivals is a major positive.
Here at Bay Hill, he ranked fourth in strokes-gained tee-to-green on his way to 21st on debut seven years ago and 17th in the same category when 29th on his return. Those are two very solid efforts at the course and suggest the Mexican, spurred on by the brilliance of Niemann, could threaten the top of the leaderboard.
Posted at 2020 GMT on 28/02/22
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