Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill
For the third year in a row I've been able to go to Bay Hill in Orlando to see the Arnold Palmer invitational golf tournament. This year Tammy got me a full week grounds pass so I've been to a practice round and taken Kirsten to the Pro-Am tournament.
The practice round was harder to follow than a tournament because there's not much info about who is on the course or where they are, so it was a bit random following players. Most players I saw practice alone (with a caddie and a coach) but there were a few in groups of two or three with just caddies and no coaches. The most notable player I found on the course was Angel Cabrera. I spent most of my time on the practice tee being amazed at how effortless, how consistently, and how far those guys hit. I was able to stand at the fence just a few feet away from Ted Purdy as he hit wedges. I also sat for a while in a corner where FootJoy was taping endorsements and Golf Digest was shooting pictures. Billy Mayfair loves his FootJoys and Golf Digest has a ton of headshots of Rocco Mediate. Golf Digest also posed and shot pictures of Boo Weekly's golf bag. Halfway through, Boo came over and said "don't you want pictures of the clubs I'm actually playing?" They had to swap several clubs and start over - I'm guessing it's for the regular feature "What's in the bag?".
For the Pro-Am Kirsten came along so we did not stay so long. We got to see Charles Howell and Bubba Watson hit over the water on #6. We overheard Charles say that on a day with the wind dead behind them he had seen Hank Kuehne cut the whole lake and hit the green from the tee! That's a carry of 340 yards.
After watching a few groups tee off 6 we walked back towards 1 and saw Woody Austin, Stephen Ames, Ben Curtis and Padraig Harrington. After that we waited a little and saw a pro-am group made up of Arnold Palmer, Tom Ridge and Bobbie Orr. Ridge and Orr were both very good golfers. The gallery was interesting since Palmer was declining autographs until after the round but Orr and Ridge were both posing for pictures and signing autographs. After following two holes Kirsten ran out of steam so we headed home. On the way out I saw Harrington sign two autographs for small kids inside the ropes - nice of him.