PGA Tour : Arnold Palmer Invitational Tee Times
There are 69 top players gathered at Bay Hill for Arnie's event, this year with signature status as the Florida swing continues. As you will see below, bad weather is arriving in Orlando for the weekend, especially Sunday where the wind will blow up to 41kph. Rain today should soften the course.
WEATHER
Wednesday: There is rain TStorms in this afternoons forecast
Thursday : mainly sunny 26*c light wind 9kph E gusts 17kph
Friday : Mix of sun/clouds 28*c breeze 16 - 24kph E 40% showers
Saturday : Cloudy, windy with 40% showers 31*c wind 27kph S gusting to 41kph
Sunday : Cloudy with sunny breaks 60% showers, wind 19kph NW gusting to 2kph
Canadians (5, all off 1st tee, all times EST)
825 Mac Hughes, Adam Schenk
835 Nick Taylor, Sepp Straka
1125 Corey Conners, Eric Cole
1215 Adam Hadwin, Si Woo Kim
1230 Adam Svensson, Harris English
Thoughts
Despite the fact that we accept that other pro sports are signing their stars for astronomical amounts in soccer. baseball football and basketball. it was 2 short years ago we were all agog with the PGA Tour $20,000,000 events, brought on by the LIV series.
They were the bad guys, we were the good guys.
Today we, as is so often the case, are inured to all the money, just like we are to the $10m cash out at the Fed Ex Cup, or similar at Race to Dubai, and the LIV are about to become part of the new world order of men's pro golf, soon.
I watched the highlights of the LIV in Jeddah last week and must admit I was saddened to see so many of our once great heroes playing in front of nobody, in some confusing, who cares individual/ team format.
Remember Sergio, Westy, Poults, Oosty, Paul Casey, Blandy, Phil, Henrik, Rahmbo, etal. It's like they are all in some private men's club that allows shorts, playing for money they know is ridiculous, giving up their heritage in the game, but still glad they are around to take it, and bury it in a Swiss bank account, before their next deal is announced.
I wish the LIV had never arrived, so do most who care about the game of golf, the greed, the avarice it has introduced, is embarrassing to we mere mortals, and has caused so much unrest and I still don't know what the Saudi's pay off is.
Tourists aren't now flocking to the Kingdom, they are still the same guys they were before they spent a cent promoting sports.
Yet as it turns out their presence has forced the PGA Tour to resolve many issues facing their players quickly.
Pro golf in the men's' game doesn't need this much money, for the top players it's ridiculous. Even the rank and file, eg Matthieu Pavon won over $3.5m in 4 events earlier this year on the PGA Tour with much more ahead. He is made for life.
Austin Eckroat, Jake Knapp recent winners of $1.6m are delighted with that and the two more guaranteed years on Tour playing the Masters, majors and signature events worth millions.
Sponsors are still flocking to give away their clubs, hats, clothing not just the $20m to the Rory's of the game but to regular guys making up the numbers every week, travel and accommodation all taken care of, as long as TV beams their product around the world.
What the hell are we going to do, when all is forgiven, Westy, Poults etal are all welcomed back to some form of new norm which you can bet will be worth more money than ever.
The saving grace, and the constant in all of this is the great game itself, and we the fans, who still flock to PGA Tour events, and keep the ratings high for the suits running the networks, not caring how much money is on offer, as obscene as it is.
Bryan Angus
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