Arnold Palmer Invitational Picks and Preview: Stars Return for Key Tune-Up Event

A loaded PGA Tour field is just outside Orlando, Florida, this week to celebrate The King at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. We preview the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational with our top outright betting picks.

World No. 1 Jon Rahm returns from a rare week off in 2022 to take his usual spot as the betting favorite. However, he'll be making his first appearance in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau was scheduled to return from injury but withdrew Monday morning. Three of the previous four champions are in attendance, with the exception being Francesco Molinari.

This week's event runs opposite the Puerto Rico Open, which hosts a considerably weaker field. It will award 300 FedEx Cup points, compared to the 550 available in Orlando. The Tour returns to TPC Sawgrass next week for The Players Championship, where Justin Thomas will defend his 2021 title.

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Here are my top outright picks for the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando.

Arnold Palmer Invitational Odds

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SEE ALSO: 2022 Masters Picks

Arnold Palmer Invitational Odds Analysis

DeChambeau's withdrawal helped to further condense the odds at the top of the board. Most books quickly lowered the odds on other top contenders Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton, and Scottie Scheffler.

Despite not winning since the U.S. Open in June and never playing at Bay Hill, Rahm is given an implied win probability as high as 11.76% at DraftKings Sportsbook. Beyond him, course history carries significant weight in the odds with past champions McIlroy, Hatton, and Marc Leishman all near the top of the board.

Reigning Honda Classic champ Sepp Straka is priced as high as +10000 at DraftKings to win again this week. He was offered as high as +14000 at some books last week.

Bay Hill Club & Lodge Course Profile

Bay Hill was home to eight of Tiger Woods' 82 career PGA Tour wins. The par-72 venue now measures a robust 7,466 yards. Just two players, DeChambeau and runner-up Lee Westwood, shot double-digits under par last year. That was with just six holes, including all four par 5s, playing to a tournament scoring average below par.

As the Florida swing continues, water remains a common theme. It's the primary hazard on nine holes, and Bay Hill frequently ranks among the courses with the highest percentage of penalty strokes doled out on the PGA Tour. The fast Bermuda greens can help to level the playing field and open the door for a longshot who can get hot with the putter for four rounds.

The par-4 range of 450-500 yards is again most common at Bay Hill, though two par 4s are also shorter than 400 yards. The shortest par 3 is 199 yards with the others extending to 231 yards. Par 5s range from 511 to 590 yards. 

Wind helps the tournament organizers make the course considerably more difficult for the weekend and especially on Sunday. No one in the field shot better than 1-under 71 in Round 4 last year. Those winds contribute to the volatility in the winning scores at this venue. Hatton won by one stroke at just minus-4 in 2020 before DeChambeau won at minus-11 last year. The previous eight winning scores had ranged from minus-11 to minus-19.

Arnold Palmer Invitational Stats

Each of the last six winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational ranked 61st or better in the OWGR coming into the week of the tournament. Those six victors followed up Matt Every's back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015. Woods, Every, and Ernie Els are the only golfers to win this event multiple times since 1995.

The key stats for the Arnold Palmer Invitational are:

Strokes Gained: off-the-tee (distance over accuracy)SG: tee-to-greenSG: approachPar 4 efficiency: 450-500 yardsPar 5 scoring

However, as mentioned, a hot week with the putter has often proven to be even more advantageous at Bay Hill than most other stops.

McIlroy is the field leader with an average of 2.69 total strokes gained on the field per round over his 28 career rounds at Bay Hill. He has four top-10 finishes in addition to his 2018 win over his last five appearances in this event.

Sungjae Im, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout have also averaged better than 2.00 total strokes gained on the field per round over their careers at Bay Hill. Will Zalatoris gained 2.06 strokes per round en route to a T-10 finish in his debut last year.

Arnold Palmer Invitational Picks

Matt Fitzpatrick (+3000 viaCaesars Sportsbook)Sam Burns (+5000 via BetMGM)Danny Willett (+25000 via DraftKings)

Check out our top-rated sportsbooks here

Arnold Palmer Invitational Outrights

Fitzpatrick (+3000)

Matt Fitzpatrick hasn't played on either the PGA Tour or the DP World Tour since a T-10 finish at the WM Phoenix Open. That followed a T-6 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for a strong start to the 2022 portion of the season. His 2021 calendar ended with a T-2 in a loaded field at the DP World Tour Championship and a T-12 at the Hero World Challenge.

The Englishman seeks a fourth straight top-10 finish in this event. He was the runner-up in 2019, tied for ninth in 2020, and for 10th last year. He has averaged 1.44 total strokes gained on the field over his 24 career rounds played at Bay Hill. Last year, he was third among those to play all four rounds with 1.71 SG: putting per round. For the 2021-22 season, Fitzpatrick is averaging 0.73 SG: putting, 1.12 SG: approach, and 1.75 SG: tee-to-green per round. He's also third in par 5 scoring average and 16th in birdie or better percentage.

The +2000 odds for Fitzpatrick to win at DraftKings are seemingly much more representative of his true odds this week. That's an implied win probability of 4.76% compared to the 3.23% offered at Caesars.

SEE ALSO: Arnold Palmer Invitational Expert Picks

Burns (+5000)

Several top sportsbooks have had odds up for next week's Players Championship for a few weeks. Among them is DraftKings, which is offering +3500 for Sam Burns to win against a much stronger field and on a less predictable course than Bay Hill. We're catching excellent value with the +5000 odds for the world's 16th-ranked golfer to win this week. By that measure, he's the sixth-best golfer in the field.

Burns has made four appearances in this event. While he missed the cut last year, he placed inside the top 55 in each of his previous three stops at Bay Hill, including a T-36 finish in 2020. He comes into this week off a stretch of three straight missed cuts, but he had frequently been priced among the favorites while on a run of eight straight top-20 finishes that included his second PGA Tour win at the Sanderson Farms Championship in the fall.

Burns is averaging 0.72 SG: approach and 1.36 SG: tee-to-green per round this season. Poor putting was a big part of his missed cuts, but even his win at the Sanderson Farms Championship came with 0.52 strokes lost per round with the flat stick. He's well above the Tour average in driving distance, and he's eighth in birdie or better percentage this season.

SEE ALSO: Arnold Palmer Invitational Prop Picks

Willett (+25000)

The books seem to have missed Danny Willett's performance at last week's Honda Classic.

While he finished a modest T-48, that was largely due to his 1.11 strokes lost per round with the putter. He was 13th among those to make the cut with 1.41 SG: tee-to-green per round, and he averaged 0.78 SG: approach per round. Those were drastic improvements on his season averages.

Willett will make his sixth career stop at Bay Hill. After two missed cuts and a withdrawal in his first three trips, he tied for 18th in 2020 and for 31st last year. He was undone by 0.46 strokes lost per round with the putter while averaging 1.25 SG: tee-to-green in 2021. Still, the former Masters champ has proven himself before on fast greens. Other books are offering odds as low as +15000 on Willett this week.

Where to Bet on the PGA Tour

Here are our top-rated sportsbooks:

FanDuel SportsbookCaesars SportsbookDraftKings SportsbookPointsBetBetMGM

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Picks made on 2/28/2022 at 3 p.m. ET.