Saturday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was the Jordan and Bryson show as Spieth and Dechambeau produced some scintillating moments that will live long in the memory.
First, Spieth poured in a birdie, followed it with a hole-in-one at the difficult second and holed a bunker shot at the seventh to leap into contention in that spellbinding way of his. It would be fair to say after the fireworks he's produced to start the year that the three-time major champion is back.
Not to be outdone, DeChambeau somewhat delivered on his promise to go for the green at the par-five sixth, launching his drive some 370 yards over water to leave himself a 70-yard pitch to the green.
He has shown over the past few years and again this week that Bay Hill is a perfect fit for his aggressive game and all of his rare mistakes so far have come on the most difficult holes. It seems that his approach off the tee pays off here and it guarantees him opportunities, particularly across the four par-fives but also holes like the fifth and 10th.
With Sunday's weather forecast calling for the wind to be the strongest it has been so far this week, with gusts upwards of 20mph, it could be that on a tougher scoring day simply taking advantage of the par-fives and grinding out something sub-70 is good enough for the US Open champion.
DeChambeau showed last year that he can handle tough windy conditions here, performing as well as anyone to post 72-71 over a brutal weekend, and the seven-time PGA Tour winner deserves his position in the market.
Conners has regressed with his iron play considerably since his opening-day 66 and he was starting to look edgy down the stretch on Saturday, despite words to the contrary in his post-round interview. When it comes to Spieth, who is two shots behind, it's hard to imagine a repeat of Saturday's magic, which included a fortunate break at the 16th, and the wait may just go on for at least another week.
Spieth who sits two shots back on 9- under, well of course anything is possible with him, however it is very hard to see even the Texan repeating the heroics of yesterday, particularly as alongside the hole in one and holed bunker shots he got several other good breaks along the way, notably on the par five 16th when he came up just shy of the water. My suspicion is then that while I now expect Spieth to be winning again soon the end to his victory drought will have to wait at least another week.
This week he has again been solid across the bag and Saturday saw him have his best day accuracy-wise off the tee, finding 10/14 fairways on his way to a three-under 69.
By contrast, Griffin has struggled off the tee, ranking 105th in driving accuracy and finding the short stuff on only five occasions on Saturday, and a repeat performance in more blustery conditions could spell disaster.
On their day there is little to choose between this pair but Putnam’s superior accuracy might make the difference, and certainly points to him being a value bet at something around the 5/4 mark.
Posted at 0950 GMT on 07/03/21
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