As 2025 enters its third month, the golf tournaments are starting to get bigger and this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational will give a great guide as to who is at the top of their game with a week to go until the Players Championship and just over a month until the first Major of the year, The Masters at Augusta.
World number one and defending champion Scottie Scheffler leads the market for the Signature Event at Bay Hill, but there could be value elsewhere in one of the PGA Tour’s most prestigious tournaments.
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Arnold Palmer Invitational betting tips
Ludvig Aberg to win @ 16/1
PGA Tour spectators have been used to seeing Scheffler get into top gear early in the year, but that hasn’t really happened in 2025, and there is plenty of talk about another potential star taking the $4m first prize this week.
Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg tees it up for the first time since he won the Genesis Invitational and he looks likely to hit the ground running.
Having withdrawn from his previous tournament, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, through illness, the 25-year-old opened with a 74 at Torrey Pines but he stormed back by carding 14-under-par for his final three rounds on one of the tour’s toughest tracks.
Aberg was second at the BMW Championship in September and had started the new year well with a fifth spot at the Sentry, so it did seem only a matter of time before he came out on top.
Previous Bay Hill finishes of 24th and 25th suggest he can get to grips of the track again and last year’s showing precipitated a successful spring as he was eighth at the Players Championship the following week and was then second to Scheffler on his Augusta debut, so expect a bold bid this week.
Shane Lowry to win @ 45/1
Shane Lowry is likely to be another European hoping for glory against the Americans in the Ryder Cup later this year and this could be the week when it all comes together for the man from Offaly.
Lowry was third in this tournament last year after flying out of the traps with a 66 and he has been consistent over the last six months.
Six top-20 finishes on the DP World Tour came after he was ninth in the 72-hole scores at the Tour Championship and he has stepped up well after missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open.
Lowry was second to Rory McIlroy at Pebble Beach and played solidly enough in finishing 11th at last week’s Cognizant Classic to suggest he could be a factor this week.
Michael Kim to win @ 66/1
Those looking for an outside interest at a bigger price are pointed towards Michael Kim.
He heads to Bay Hill with some strong February form, having finished second at the Phoenix Open, 13th at both the Genesis and the Mexico Open, while he couldn’t quite keep it together last week as a disappointing closing 71 saw him slip to sixth spot.
However, he could rise to the challenge of testing himself against better company and can give a good account of himself.
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