Exclusive: Arnold Palmer Invitational & A Special Return After Six Years For Two Reasons

2 hours ago by 0

This week’s hosting of the 2026 Arnold Palmer Invitational is a double special return for this journalist.

Not only will this year’s tournament sadly mark the 10th anniversary year of Arnold Palmer’s passing but also it is six years since the hosting of the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational was the last ‘full’ PGA Tour event I attended.

When I say ‘full’, I refer to the fact that back in that first week of March 2020 the world was falling more and more in the grip of the worldwide COVID disease crisis.

Up to the hosting of the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational there had already been 10 events on three different golf tour’s cancelled or postponed due to fears of the Coronavirus – the last six events on the MENA (Middle East North Africa) Tour, three events in succession in Cairo on the ALPS Tour and one, the Magical Kenya Open, on the European Tour.

 

And there had been much talk of moving the annual PGA Championship, set down for the second week of May 2020 at TPC Harding Pack in San Francisco, to TPC Sawgrass and host venue the week post Arnie’s event of the Players Championship.

Of course, we now know the PGA Championship was played at TPC Harding Park but not till the first week of August 2020.

A big COVID concern among those teeing-up at Bay Hill in March 2020 was their interaction with spectators, including the younger generation of fans seeking autographs with many among those teeing-up expressing views as to whether or not they should be signing autographs.

Graeme McDowell was one of those concerned saying at the time: “I am not sure what is going to happen but I do know there is a lot of hand sanitizes here at the course and also in our hous, and there’s also a lot of types of new handshakes, like ‘elbow’ handshaking taking place here at Bay Hill.”

The tournament went ahead despite the growing COVID concerns and with Tyrrell Hatton getting to shake Arnie’s hand, winning by a shot.

Five days later and at precisely 9am on Friday the 13th March, 2020, and a day after Hideki Matsuyama had matched the TPC Sawgrass course record with an opening round 63, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan called a press conference wherein he advised the 2020 Players Championshiip was cancelled and the Tour was going into lockdown due to growing concern surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

I spent my time post the annoucement speaking with players as they cleaned-out their TPC Sawgrass lockers and with no-one knowing how they would cope in the immediate months ahead.

Several more tournaments were later cancelled or postponed, including all four major championships, the two remaining World Golf Championships and the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

Your author beside Arnie’s golf bag at Bay Hill …. A superb memory in this year’s 10th anniversary of his passing.

The Tour resumed on June 11th with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Fort Worth, Texas but with strict measures in place to mitigate the risk of virus transmission. The following week at the RBC Heritage, Nick Watney became to first player to test positive for the coronavirus.

It was a difficult time in the history of the planet and while countless lost their lives, thankfully the virus was contained.

I enjoyed being present at many Arnold Palmer Invitational’s including a very special moment when early evening one day of the touranment a golf cart was heading up a narrow pathway in the direction of the media centre that was temporarily laidout for the week on the club’s tennis courts.

It was Arnold and beside him was this adorable-looking golden labrador.

Arnold stopped and happily chatted with the three of us. I politely asked him the name of his dog. Arnold responded: ‘Mulligan’.  I afterwards mentioned to my colleagues: “What a fabulous name for the much-loved dog of a golfer”.

So much looking forward to be present this week for the 2026 Arnold Palmer Invitational.

 

 

 

 



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *