Daniel Berger capitalizes on benign Bay Hill with first-round 63 at Arnold Palmer Invitational; Ludvig Åberg in pursuit
· Yahoo Sports
ORLANDO, Fla. — Bay Hill Club & Lodge greeted the world’s best golfers on Thursday with an unusually warm and welcoming embrace.
Daniel Berger leaned in, found his comfort zone and returned the love with a bogey-free 9-under-par 63, the best round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational since Adam Scott’s tournament record-tying 62 in 2014.
Visit librea.one for more information.
“I’ve been playing really well,” Berger said. “It’s one shot here, one shot there that kind of doesn’t go your way.”
Everything lined up for Berger Thursday, beginning with benevolent conditions at one of the PGA Tour’s toughest annual stops. A lack of wind allowed golfers to attack greens, firming up by the hour while baking in mid-80s temperatures.
“The greens are, like, white,” Berger said.
A year after a squandering a four-shot lead to winner Russell Henley on the final six holes, Collin Morikawa again was stellar with a 66. Jhonattan Vegas and Cam Young carded 67s.
But once the morning wave had passed, Bay Hill pushed back and turned testy as a weather front pushed into Central Florida. Only Ludvig Åberg, who teed off at 1 p.m., was able to meet the familiar challenge at Palmer’s exacting 7,317-yard layout.
The 26-year-old Swede fired a remarkable 66, capped by a birdie putt just inside 25 feet on the 18th hole.
“It was definitely a good day,” he said. “I was rolling it nicely on the greens. I was hitting fairways. Felt like I was not trying to be overly aggressive. I wasn’t trying to be conservative either. But it was tricky with the crosswind.”
Åberg’s 25-foot eagle putt on the par-5 12th erased back-to-back bogeys on holes 10 and 11. Playing partner Nico Echavarria, on the other hand, saw a promising round featuring a front-nine 30 collapse with a triple-bogey 8. He finished even par and tied for 33rd in the 72-player field.
Coming off last week’s win at the Cognizant Classic, Echavarria wasn’t the only golfer in form to lose his way Thursday afternoon.
World No. 3 Tommy Fleetwood shot 76 and Jacob Bridgeman, winner of the Feb. 19 Genesis Invitational, carded a 75. World No. 2 Rory McIroy was 3-under par standing in the fairway of the par-3 13th hole, but found the water from 130 yards and made double-bogey. He followed with a bogey 4 on the 13th hole and finished with a 72.
Meanwhile, Justin Thomas’ PGA Tour debut after a four-month layoff following back surgery ended with a 79, tied at the bottom of leaderboard with Pierceson Coody and 21-year-old South African phenom Aldrich Potgieter.
Berger is familiar with returning from injury. The 32-year-old from Plantation endured a 19-month break spanning 2022–2024) for a serious lower back injury. In August 2025, he broke his right ring finger hitting a 7-iron at the BMW Championship, leading to a three-month layoff Berger figured would be four or five weeks.
“It’s hard,” he said. “Things are going to happen in life, so you just kind of roll with it and deal with it. It just felt like they kind of stacked up a bunch in a row.”
On Thursday, Berger could do little wrong. He followed a solid 33 on the opening nine with a backside birdie blitz, including three straight on holes 10-12, for a 30 on the final nine holes.
He led the field with 5.080 shots gained tee to green, was second to Morikawa with 3.536 strokes gained on approach and trailed only Akshay Bhatia with 3.718 strokes gained putting.
“The biggest thing was getting back into a rhythm,” Berger said.
He now will have to take on Bay Hill Friday afternoon, when winds will gain speed, the greens will become bumpier and the stakes will continue to rise approaching the weekend.
“When you come to Bay Hill to play this event you know what you’re getting,” he said.
Åberg will tee off at 9:45 a.m. with a chance to gain ground in more docile conditions.
Considered a rising star since he joined the tour in 2023, Åberg has won twice but not at the pace expected. A victory at Palmer’s prestigious event could ignite a breakthrough season.
With three top 25s in three starts at Bay Hill, Åberg knows how things can get sideways. He plans to be patient and stick to the process, rather than push for an even better score.
“If you go out with the mindset of trying to shoot 63, you can shoot 77 pretty quickly,” he said.