The Struggle Was Real

Henley comes out on top in stern Bay Hill test

Russell Henley has been anything but a flashy figure in a 13-year PGA Tour career. The Georgian, modest and unassuming, just goes about his business, but what a lucrative business it has been. With four career wins in 295 starts coming into the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Henley had made more than $33 million. In contrast to previous generations, a professional golfer doesn’t have to win big to earn big.

Thanks to the winner’s $4 million payday Sunday in the API at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, in Orlando, Henley raised his career earnings to $37,473,215. If you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of dough, he must be way up there in the ranking,” Henley is 40^th on the all-time list, sandwiched between Luke Donald and Paul Casey. That’s more than three dozen very wealthy golfers between him and No. 1 Tiger Woods’ $120 million career total.

Henley won at Bay Hill with a 72-hole total of 11-under 277, with third-round leader Collin Morikawa finishing one stroke behind. Morikawa closed with a 72, having led Henley, Corey Conners and Jason Day by three strokes with five holes to play.

Conners hung around and finished third, and Day slipped into a tie for eighth. Henley took charge.

On the difficult par-3 14^th hole, Henley faded a soft-landing 5-iron within 10 feet—he rarely practices or hits cuts in competition—and sank the birdie putt. Combined with Morikawa’s bogey, Henley was one stroke behind. That deficit dramatically disappeared on the par-5 16^th hole. Henley overshot the green in two, his ball settling in some of Bay Hill’s gnarly rough, a spot from which a birdie was no bargain.

But from 54 feet Henley chipped in for an eagle 3, his ball moving pretty fast down a glassy slope as it hit the flagstick and dropped in. When Morikawa missed a 19-footer for birdie, Henley led by one. Plenty can go wrong on the 17^th and 18^th holes at Bay Hill, but Henley avoided trouble and finished with pars as valuable as pearls. “On 17 and 18, I was very nervous,” Henley said. “That was nervous as I can remember ever being.” Jitters notwithstanding, presently he was wearing the red cardigan emblematic of victory at Bay Hill, the late Palmer’s longtime winter home.

Henley’s spectacular greenside shot on the 16^th contrasted with his front-nine performance on the longest holes. The par-5 blunders tested his mindset, but he maintained a good attitude. “When I bogeyed both par 5s on the front—just momentum killers,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I had a great chance at that point, and Collin was playing so steady, like he always does. So just to hang in there enough to give myself some looks is what I’ll take from this day.”

A week after the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches was played on an unusually submissive Champion course at PGA National, the API didn’t serve just as a difficult exam but could be an essay question on what PGA Tour venues should be. There were 14 rounds in the 60s on Sunday—highlighted by Keegan Bradley’s 64—and 15 sub-70 scores on Saturday. It wasn’t as if scoring was impossible. Yet, with four-inch rough and greens (that at times looked like off-whites, especially on Saturday) faster than 13 on the Stimpmeter, Bay Hill was demanding.

“It’s just one of those that you can’t fake it,” Morikawa said of Bay Hill after his third-round 67. It was a beautiful round on a burdensome course; Morikawa hit eight approach shots inside 12 feet.

Devotees of the strategic architecture school who aren’t fans of punishing rough likely didn’t like what they witnessed at the API. But in this era of greater distance, it was nice to see tour pros face a true test that down the stretch also was a taut, entertaining test. Unfortunately, to read the comments from some PGA Tour members in Adam Schupak’s Golfweek story last week about testing a rollbacked ball example it looks like self interest is at the heart of their opinions.

Those pros should know that if the ball didn’t go as far as it does, a course wouldn’t need the level of defenses put forth at Bay Hill. Henley’s earnings at the API are impressive, but how he earned that big fat direct deposit is what he will remember most.