Arnold Palmer Invitational Free Picks & Analysis
Event: Arnold Palmer Invitational
Where: Bay Hill Club
Watch: Golf Channel, NBC
When: March 2-5
The PGA Tour continues its swing through the Sunshine State this weekend with a stop in Orlando for the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. A field that features 44 of the World Golf Rankings’ top 50 players will tee it up for pieces of another $20 million purse and – to the winner – a Palmer-esque cardinal cardigan.
Last week Chris Kirk birdied the first hole of a playoff with Eric Cole to win the Honda Classic at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens. In doing so Kirk produced a 25/1 payout for his financial backers.
Tyler Duncan showed third last week; Ryan Gerard finished fourth; defending Honda Classic champion Sepp Straka, Ben Martin, Ben Taylor, Shane Lowry and Justin Suh tied for fifth; and Dylan Wu and David Lingmerth tied for tenth.
Kirk now owns three top-3 finishes over his last four tournaments; he took third at Waialae back in January and T-3 at La Quinta a month ago. Also, Taylor owns three top-5’s over his last eight starts.
Bay Hill, home to this event since 1979, plays to par-72 at around 7.450 yards. Over the last 10 years most winning scores came in at between 13- and 18-under par. But this course played really tough two of the last three years; Ty Hatton won it at -4 in 2020 and Scottie Scheffler won it at -5 last year.
Scheffler closed with a 72 last year but that was better than almost everybody else, on a day with an average score of 75! Hatton, Viktor Hovland and Florida man Billy Horschel tied for second; Gary Woodland, who held the lead with two holes to play but double-bogeyed No. 17, and Kirk tied for fifth; Lucas Herbert and Talor Gootch tied for seventh; and Sam Burns and Matt Fitzpatrick tied for ninth.
Each week we take a look at the online betting sites and highlight what we believe to be some of the best values on the board, with a few free picks to click. Odds to win and pairings for this week can be found at Bovada. Here’s our take on some of the field in this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Jon Rahm, as is the case for any tournament he plays these days, tops the betting on Bovada’s Arnold Palmer Invitational board at +700. Rory McIlroy, who won this event in 2018, sits as the second choice at +900. And defending champion Scheffler comes third at +1100.
Matt Fitzpatrick +3300 to win
Englishman Fitzpatrick owns a great recent track record at Bay Hill; he finished second here in 2019, T-9 here in 2020, T-10 in ’21 and T-9 here last year. He started well enough earlier this season, including a top-10 at Kapalua, but he hasn’t been 100 percent healthy lately and took last week off. Hopefully he’s ready to go because we’re throwing some cash on him at 33/1.
Chris Kirk +800 to finish top-5
Kirk finished T-8 here two years ago and T-5 last year. He also, as mentioned above, is playing great as of late, with a win last week and two top-3’s over his last four starts. And as a roulette player we believe it’s never a bad idea to throw a chip on the number that just came up.
Keith Mitchell +900 to finish top-5
Mitchell T-6 here in 2019 and T-5 in 2020. He also T-4 at Pebble Beach a month ago and finished fifth at Riviera two weeks ago. He then took last week off. So he’s played well on this course, he’s played well lately and he should be well rested.
We caught a taste of success last week with the pairing of Kirk and Denny McCarthy on Bovada’s Honda Classic “two chances” board at +1100. As for this week Bovada is offering Hatton at +400 in a group betting prop with Jason Day, Sungjae Im, Hovland and Fitzpatrick. And Sadith Theegala, who owns five top-seven finishes this season, is getting +450 against Cam Young, Jordan Spieth, Burns and Tom Kim.
The first groups for this Arnold Palmer Invitational go off Thursday morning at 7 ET. Bet your Arnold Palmer Invitational picks for FREE by scoring a 100% real cash bonus up to $300 when you enter bonus code PREDICT100 at MyBookie Sportsbook!
