The Bay Hill Club in Orlando does not suffer fools, certainly not in recent years, when some of the most exacting conditions of the year are presented to golfers at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Rory McIlroy could be seen muttering to himself on Saturday after walking off with consecutive bogeys, at a loss for why he was struggling so much off the tee. Second-round leader Shane Lowry, seemingly so in control, opened with two bogeys and shot 76, as did 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, who began only a shot back.

So it was a bit surprising to hear tournament leader Collin Morikawa, after a five-under-par 67, say it was “fairly stress free.”

“I’m very pleased,” said the two-time major champion. “I could easily go back and say I left a couple birdie putts out there on a couple holes, but for the most part it was fairly stress-free.

“I thought I did a really good job on the greens today, just kind of not lagging it, but just hitting good pace on the putts. You get on these greens and they’re slippery. Where these pins are cut, they’re just, it’s really, really dicey, and you just have to commit to hitting very, very drip-in speeds, and I did that starting on hole one.”

In addition to difficult rough, Bay Hill has forged a reputation with some of the toughest greens of the year to date. Despite early-week rain, they are firm and fast, frighteningly so.

Morikawa, who has struggled at times on the greens in his six-victory PGA Tour career, navigated them quite nicely during a difficult third round that promises to be even more strenuous on Sunday, when gusty winds are expected.

His 67 included just a single bogey and his birdie on the final hole pushed him a shot ahead of Russell Henley, two ahead of Corey Conners and three in front of Jason Day.

Lowry slipped down the leaderboard to a tie for seventh, six back. McIlroy is seven strokes back.

Morikawa, who won the 2020 PGA Championship and the 2021 British Open, hasn’t won since the 2023 ZOZO Championship despite being close several times last year. He played in the final group with Scottie Scheffler at the Masters. He had six top-five finishes in 2024.

“It’s interesting. I look back at last year, obviously at the end of the year, and I never felt like my game was fully in control, right,” Morikawa said. “And I showed up in Hawaii [in January] and I felt like the eight weeks I put in was like really, really good work. It’s tough to say sometimes when you feel good, but you just—there’s a difference of like going into a week and finding something that week and just kind of playing with it, which you can win, I’ve done it in the past.

“But if you want to go on a long run or you want to go on a nice stretch, you really have to be in control. Like even on the missed shots. I missed a few. You wouldn’t know, but they ended up well. So it’s just, there’s a slight difference, right, of where I have been to where I am now to even a few weeks ago, right. Small little things.”


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Collin Morikawa Takes Lead at Arnold Palmer Invitational With Tough Final Round Ahead.