Arnold Palmer Invitational predictions & golf betting tips
Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tips
Eight-time champion Tiger Woods may be missing from this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, but Bay Hill has attracted a stellar field with The Players Championship taking place at Sawgrass next week and the US Masters looming on the horizon.
The fourth signature event of the season has a limited field of just 69 from which 2022 champion Scottie Scheffler is the 13/2 favourite and course specialist Rory McIlroy - inside the top 13 in seven successive visits - not far behind at 9/1 despite an underwhelming performance at PGA National last week.
Bay Hill ranks in the top 10 most difficult courses on the PGA Tour over the last five years and generally the winner will need to have an excellent all-round game, although the strokes gained: putting and tee-to green metrics have featured prominently amongst recent winners.
Scheffler and McIlroy have both won here in the last six years, but surprises are not uncommon, with Matt Every successfully defending his title in 2015 at 300/1 and 12 months ago Kurt Kitayama defied a final-round triple-bogey on the par-four ninth to win by one shot on his tournament debut as a 200/1 outsider.
We’ve checked the UK betting sites and picked out three Arnold Palmer Invitational tips from one of the highlights of the year.
Young at heart of the action
Cameron Young is a major winner in waiting and it was no surprise to see him cut from 33/1 to 28/1 by golf betting sites while writing this preview.
The 26-year-old from New York state has finished inside the top 10 in four of his last eight majors and heads to Bay Hill buoyed by Monday’s closing 66 for a fourth-placed finish at the former Honda Classic, now sponsored by Cognizant.
Young seems an ideal fit for this par-72 track which has undergone plenty of changes in the past 10 years, including reducing the rough around the water and bunker hazards, but allowing it to grow off the widened fairways.
The big hitters will have an advantage, but there’s trouble if you stray too far from the fairway, so it’s encouraging that Young was sixth for strokes gained tee to green at the Champion course last week which moved him into the top 40 in that statistic.
Putting is a slight concern, but Young ranks inside the top 20 from this limited field for that metric and he finished third at January’s Dubai Desert Classic which has the same TifEagle Bermudagrass greens as Bay Hill.
On top of his three top 10s from his last five outings, Young finished 13th on his tournament debut in 2022 and was 10th a year ago, so the stage looks set for a strong performance, with Unibet the pick of the gambling sites, paying out on six places at 28/1.
English looks the business
The top-10 market has been kind to us in recent weeks with Jason Day and Keith Mitchell both obliging at 4/1, although admittedly the latter was in a congested tie for ninth at the weather-affected Cognizant Classic.
One player who could also impress this week is Harris English, who has been hovering around the world’s top 40 for the best part of a year and can take a giant stride towards the elite with another big showing.
English has been solid in 2024 with four top 20s in six events, and four sub-70 rounds guaranteed seventh place at the Genesis Invitational, so his game looks in good shape.
Only four of the players that played at the weekend ranked better in the SG: putting metric at Riviera and his tee to green stats have been strong this season.
Twelve months ago, English’s excellent putting helped him finish just a shot behind winner Kitayama and tellingly said on the Sunday that he "loves playing in the US Opens and this is as close to a US Open set-up that we play".
His last four appearances in that major read 4-3-61-8 and with a similar challenge in prospect, English can be a top-10 hit at Bay Hill again, just as he was in 2020 for the first time.
English spoke last year about how he loves this style of golf - "you’ve got to play chess out here and pick your spots" - an opinion similarly expressed by Kitayama following his shock victory.
With patience the key to success in this elite field, English looks a reasonable shout for a third top-10 finish in four appearances at this course, with BetVictor pricing him at 4/1.
Spieth can go low on day one
The last of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational predictions comes from the first-round leader market.
Patrick Cantlay gave us a 33/1 winner when he topped the Thursday leaderboard at Riviera and he tied for fifth on his Bay Hill debut last year, so he certainly catches the eye at 25/1 for another fast start.
However, three-time major winner Jordan Spieth gets the nod at a slightly higher price, having finished fourth overall in his two appearances at Bay Hill which seems to suit his eye.
The American has been bursting out of the blocks lately, finishing inside the top seven at the end of day one in three of his last five tournaments, including an opening-round 66 at the Genesis where he was subsequently disqualified 24 hours later for signing an incorrect scorecard.
He will be keen to banish that memory and with the weather set fair for Thursday, Spieth can get off to a flying start at 28/1 each-way on betting apps with BoyleSports offering the pick of the prices in the first-round market.
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Warren Barner is an experienced sports journalist who has spent the last few years writing for Ladbrokes, Coral, Bwin and PokerStars/BetStars. He covers football, tennis and golf and is a lifelong York City fan.
