Lynch: Round one at Arnold Palmer Invitational a reminder of why sports psychology exists

USA Today

07-03-2025

Lynch: Round one at Arnold Palmer Invitational a reminder of why sports psychology exists
The temperature during Thursday's first round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational said Bay Hill — a balmy 69 degrees — but the conditions suggested somewhere more like Birkdale, with a blustery wind and gnarly rough leaving the world's best golfers struggling to match the thermometer, and more than a few shooting something closer to the prevailing high at the PGA Tour's other stop this week in tropical Puerto Rico.
Sports psychology dates back almost 200 years as a discipline, but opening day at the API illustrated why it has no better theater than professional golf. Granted, one can look to the top of the leaderboard and find evidence of the grit, attitude and application that many a psych Ph.D would applaud, but scroll down a ways and there's ample examples of the valleys that keep therapists employed.
Max Homa was No. 7 in the world ranking and fresh off his sixth PGA Tour victory when he came to Bay Hill two years ago. Today he's much lower in the ranking (66th) and even moreso in confidence (without a single top 10 finish on Tour since May). Homa's only silver lining is his decision to remain out of Elon Musk's social media sewer, denying the trolls an easy target. His 81 wasn't even the worst of the day.
Homa is mired in a slump of duration, but plenty of his peers saw the conditions in Orlando shunt them from peak to valley with dizzying speed. Twelve days ago, Aldrich Potgieter lost a playoff at the Tour's Mexico Open, during which he wowed spectators with his prodigious driving. He couldn't bludgeon Arnie's place into submission though. Potgieter found half of the fairways and even fewer of the greens on his way to a 79, a total made better by two birdies in the closing stretch but made memorable for a topped tee shot into the lake on the sixth hole.
The man who edged Potgieter in Mexico, Brian Campbell, again found himself tied with the burly 20-year-old South African by day's end, while the man who missed that playoff by one, Isaiah Salinda, shot 77. Akshay Bhatia, top 10 in his last two starts, barely broke 80. World No. 3 Xander Schauffele, holder of two major championships and coming back from an injury, went out in 41 strokes and was headed for something similar. Daniel Berger, runner-up a month ago in Phoenix, shot 78. Same as Sam Stevens, second a few weeks prior in San Diego.
By the time the opening round was staggering to a close, it was painfully apparent how quickly feast can become famine in professional golf. The scoring average hovered around 75.
None of this is new at Bay Hill. The Tour's Florida swing is known to be demanding — at least it was, until PGA National had its teeth knocked out during last week's Cognizant Classic — and that reputation owes something to the traditional course set-up here. Three of the previous five winners at the API finished single digits under par, two of them at 5- and 4-under. Palmer wanted a tough test for the world's best, and that's at least one part of his legacy that his family continues since his death in 2016.
Whether competitors appreciate the bruising one week before they head to TPC Sawgrass for The Players — another brutal examination, with more stature attached to the trophy — is another matter. A couple of years ago Rory McIlroy suggested that the emphasis on difficulty was off-putting given what follows.
'You pick your poison out here. You can probably create a story with whatever it is. The greens are tough, the rough is high, and the wind is up,' said world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler after his round of 71, a nod to the reality that Bay Hill doesn't show much mercy, regardless of wind.
Thursday demanded creativity and we saw plenty at the top of the leaderboard. It created carnage too at the opposite end. Bay Hill extracts a pound of flesh without anesthetic, but today was a particularly sadistic delight for those eager to see elite golfers work for the $4 million first-place prize.
A couple hours northeast of Orlando, the Epson Tour opened Thursday in Atlantic Beach. The scorecards returned in high winds there looked like the dialing code for Tierra del Fuego, to borrow a phrase from the late Peter Alliss. By mid-afternoon, 24 players had shot in the 80s, with another seven almost certainly destined to do the same. Barely a half-dozen competitors matched or bettered par. The total purse in Atlantic Beach is $250,000, equivalent to 21st place in Orlando. The winner receives $37,500. Fourteen guys will earn more for missing the cut at Bay Hill. Lows in this game are relative.