Stifled Attendance Vitiates API's Return to Bay Hill

  Central Florida's greatest golf extravaganza opened its doors today amid a subdued turnout. Despite the passing of the tournament's namesake, Bay Hill's Arnold Palmer Invitational continues to attract wide interest from golf fans. However, this year's tournament organizers intentionally limited the event's attendance due to COVID-19 and the PGA, despite skyrocketing demand and the nullification of restrictions by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

  The winner of last year's tournament, Tyrrell Hatton, explained the oddity of playing with spectators numbering so few: “It's kind of hard to remember the cheers, really,” Hatton said Wednesday. “We've played a lot of golf since then with obviously no fans.”  The Houston Open and the Phoenix open recently ramped up fan attendance to the thousands, though Bay Hill will only permit one seat per ticketholder at around the same 25% threshold.

  Today's pro-Am event featured Bryson DeChambeau's unsuccessful shot at driving his ball over the small lake on the right-to-left, 555-yard sixth hole. Some onlookers ambled about the links to watch while others just walked around the practice area. The tournament demonstrates the PGA's return to normalcy may be on its way but is certainly a far cry from coming full circle. “It will be nice having a limited number of fans out there again, just to kind of give a bit more of an atmosphere,” Hatton said. “And hopefully, I can do something worth cheering about.” Hatton is currently sits at no. 6, moving up from 31 before last year's shutdown. However, Hatton remains a long way off from besting Tiger Woods' nine victories at the tournament.

  API was the last PGA tournament was the last before the pandemic suspended the game for three months.