After a dramatic finish at PGA National, the PGA TOUR heads north to Orlando for the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge.

Much like The Genesis Invitational and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, the Arnold Palmer Invitational is a Signature Event that still features a cut. The top 50 players and ties advance to the weekend, along with anyone within 10 strokes of the 36-hole lead. With the elevated purse attached to Signature Events, this week's winner will take home $4 million.

Defending champion Russell Henley (+3300) returns to the field looking to become the first player to successfully defend his title at Bay Hill since Matt Every in 2015.

Looking at the history of champions at Bay Hill, the course has typically been conquered by two very different player archetypes. What both groups have in common, though, is elite driving ability.

On one side, you have the deep ball golfers. Scottie Scheffler (+335), Rory McIlroy (+980) and Tiger Woods, among others. These are golfers who can overpower a golf course with their distance.

On the other side, you have the precision drivers. Players like Henley, Francesco Molinari and Tyrrell Hatton. These golfers may not overpower the course, but they are extremely accurate off the tee.

Every champion here has possessed something special with the driver. They are either deadly long or deadly accurate.

Bay Hill is a 7,466-yard, par-72 course that represents a true test of golf. The course is long, and hitting fairways here is notably more difficult than the TOUR average. Over the last five years, players have hit just 56.7% of fairways, compared to the TOUR average of 60.5%.

Missing fairways at Bay Hill is also far more penal than at most venues. If you are going to miss, it needs to be a narrow miss. Otherwise, players are not only dealing with thick rough but also the penalty areas that loom across the property. Water is in play on nine holes, and the way Arnold Palmer designed this course ensures that good shots are rewarded while poor shots are punished.

If you think you can consistently miss the fairway and still hit greens, think again. The greens-in-regulation percentage from the rough sits at just 42.3%, well below the TOUR average of 51.6%.

Because the course stretches close to 7,500 yards, players also face significantly longer approach shots. Forget about the early-season venues where players can simply hit driver and wedge. That’s not the case at Bay Hill. More than 32% of approach shots come from 200 yards or more, which puts a heavy emphasis on long-iron play.

Here are the golfers who have performed best from 200-225 yards over their last 36 rounds (data via RickRunGood.com):

1) Viktor Hovland
2) Robert MacIntyre
3) Ludvig Åberg
4) Daniel Berger
5) Cameron Young
6) Corey Conners

Of the players on this list, Åberg (+4000) stands out the most.

Åberg’s PGA TOUR career has felt a bit volatile at times, but there’s no denying that he possesses all the tools needed to win consistently. He’s long off the tee, extremely accurate, and his long iron play is something special.

Courses that reward driving prowess are where Åberg thrives. If you look at the places where he has already had success, it makes perfect sense.

He won The Genesis when it was played at Torrey Pines and was the first-round leader at the Farmers Insurance Open. Torrey Pines (South) is a course where driving ability is a major advantage.

Åberg has dealt with some health issues recently that have briefly slowed him down. He withdrew from The American Express and then missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open.

However, his last two starts have shown improvement. He finished T37 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and followed that with a T20 at The Genesis.

At Riviera, he didn’t have his best stuff across all four rounds, yet he still gained strokes across the board. When that happens, golfers are on the trajectory towards winning.

Typically, Åberg is priced around +2000 in the outright market. Seeing him available at +4000 feels like a perfect buy-low opportunity.

Based on everything we know about this golf course, Bay Hill is not a place where players can survive poor driving weeks.

Golfers who are struggling off the tee will feel the pressure here immediately. If you’re constantly playing from the rough, you’re going to spend the entire round scrambling to save par.

And when that happens, bogeys tend to pile up quickly.

Here are the worst driving-accuracy players over their last 36 rounds:

1) Justin Thomas
2) Ryan Fox
3) Taylor Pendrith
4) Michael Kim
5) Nicolai Højgaard
6) Aldrich Potgieter

Of this group, Pendrith (+10500) stands out as my biggest fade this week.

At the time of writing, there are not many matchup markets available to fade him directly. One potential angle could be a first-round matchup against Denny McCarthy, though I am not particularly high on McCarthy, either.

Pendrith has not performed well at Bay Hill. He missed the cut at Torrey Pines earlier this season and has missed back-to-back cuts at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

If his driver begins to get wayward, things could unravel quickly. Pendrith is one of those players whose iron play often suffers when his driving confidence dips. When that happens, the struggles tend to spread across his entire bag. A missed cut, even in the limited field, is not out of the realm of possibilities.

Best value on the board

Collin Morikawa: First-round leader (+3100 at DraftKings)

It’s refreshing to see Morikawa (+2500 outright) playing some of the best golf of his career again.

This is a two-time major champion, yet there were stretches last season where it felt like he was closer to missing cuts than contending for trophies. The best way to silence those doubts is to win again on the PGA TOUR.

Morikawa did exactly that at Pebble Beach.

He won the tournament by gaining an absurd +9.7 strokes on approach, which translated to +12.6 strokes tee-to-green. Even more encouraging, he finally avoided losing strokes on the putting surface.

He followed that victory with another strong ball-striking performance at The Genesis, a course that typically doesn’t suit him as well as Pebble Beach.

At Riviera, he gained 5.4 strokes ball striking and 1.2 strokes putting, marking the first time he gained strokes putting in eight events. That effort resulted in a T7 finish.

If Morikawa maintains this level of confidence, it would not be surprising to see him win multiple times this season.

While I have a slight lean toward his outright price, I like his first-round leader number even more. He receives a morning tee time, and he should carry plenty of confidence after finishing runner-up here last year.

Morikawa also grades out as one of the best first-round players in the field according to strokes-gained data.

If he finds the fairways early, he has the type of iron play that can produce a low number quickly while the rest of the field navigates the carnage Bay Hill tends to create.

In his two top-10 finishes here over the past four starts, Morikawa gained more than 2.5 strokes on the field in the opening round. In both of those rounds, he gained strokes on approach and with the putter.

Those are exactly what we need for a spike round and a first-round lead.

For resources to overcome a gambling problem, call or text 1-800-MY-RESET today.