PGA Tour: Arnold Palmer Invitational: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

On the road, but off the top of my head, and to get a thread up and running:

1).Charl Schwartzel in with a rare South African win in a "regular" Tour event, the first since Tim Clark (remember Timmy?) in Montreal in 2014, probably Els before him. But Kings Charl and Louis have to be on any short list for a Major and now they have His Grace to join them.

2).Matt Every has won the "Arnie" for the past two years but nothing else and decent finishes have been very few and even further between. Sounds like he has a touch of the Kevin Nas, occasionally "freezing" at the top of his backswing. Assume he'd be grateful for a medical marijuana fix.

3).And Charlie Howell goes for his TENTH Top 25 (9th Top 18) of the young season. Doesn't that just about sum CHIII up? Whatever it is that holds him back must be remedied soon or he'll be on the Champions Tour before he knows it.

4).Value of a caddy? Just ask Sung Kang. 61 career starts and all four of his Top 25 results have come since he rented Fluff Cowan as his caddy at Pebble Beach - Fluff being grateful for the petty cash 'til Furyk returns.

5).Fitzpatrick, Sullivan and Wood, plus plenty of young Europeans in this week's field. But I'd be thrilled to see Henrik Stenson break through after his near miss here last year.

Also Champions Tour action in Tucson, web.com thrills in flooded Louisiana.

Day made pretty hard work of it and was helped massively by Chappell's bogey on the 72nd. But crucially the Day of a 18 months ago would have folded somewhere around the 6th when he put is second in the pond and wouldn't have been a feature of the back 9, never mind hanging on until the 72nd.

And how about that booming iron on the 9th from the rough? We know he is mates with Tiger and that was the most tiger'esque shot I have seen in a while.

Shout out to Merritt for 5 birds in a row. What does Super_realist think of Merritts weight and body shape?

What about his body shape Mac? He's a normal weight for his height, not sure what else there is to say.

He looks very underweight. Just wondered if you also have an issue with people aiming for size zero.

Looks perfectly normal to me. He's simply got the body of someone who is physically active and not sedentary.
We've just got used to people looking fat and accepting it as normal.

With 4 players up there sharing the lead on the back 9 I was convinced this was going to a play off. But a great win from Jay Day, showed dogged determination to bounce back twice during his round: firstly from his early wobble, and then crucially his pressure birdie on 17 after messing up 16. And 18 was just about holding his nerve.

Very impressed with Troy Merritt's birdie blitz and chip in to save par on 17. Just ran out of steam on 18, as did Chappell. Looked like the pressure got to them both. Talking of pressure, was that another choke from Stenson? The bogey on 16 was horrible.

Well closed out by JDay but he is very deliberate, can't warm to the guy, but probably slight favourite for Augusta at the the moment. Spieth & McIlroy will require each way bets to cover inconsistency.

Good to see Euro's performing well Sullivan, Moilinari and Fitzpatrick. Rose stuck in neutral over the weekend which was a tad disappointing, Casey a on the edge of things again this week.

Matchplay should be good, Poulter trying to hedge his bets I see - why does he shank it so much - genuine question? Twice in a round, cannot be good for confidence. Secondly, he must spend his life on Twitter - may explain the shanks- or pay some one to review said anything about him on it. The guy at the Valspar was an idiot, but they ain't going away, Pouletr should just move on, or in the cynic in me thinks it is just a ruse to keep his name in the media.

Poulter loves the attention. All publicity is good publicity as far as he is concerned

McLaren wrote:He looks very underweight.  Just wondered if you also have an issue with people aiming for size zero.

What a warped point of view. Merritt a bit skinny but hardly "underweight". I'm assuming this is another "legendary" wind up.

I expect he will bulk up a bit in order to swing with more control. Looked a bit wobbly at the top on some of his driver swings.

nabbed from princedrac https://twitter.com/VC606

The WGC draw sheet.




Anyone want to make some predictions of who gets out of each group etc?