ORLANDO — Invoking the spirit of his grandfather and namesake of the tournament he represents, Sam Saunders expressed his desire to see the field expand at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
“One thing my grandfather loved was he wanted all the guys. He wanted as many guys as he could to come here and play his golf course and compete and have a real, honest, meaningful competition, and whoever walks away as champion, it should mean a lot to ’em,” Saunders, vice president of partnerships for the tournament, said Tuesday at Bay Hill Club. “So, yeah, it would be really nice to see that evolve, and I’m very optimistic that we’ll get back to that place at some point.”
Designated as a signature event in 2022, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which begins Thursday, features a field of 72 players, far fewer than the 120 once included in the PGA Tour’s invitational tournaments. As opposed to other signature events, the invitationals—the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Genesis Invitational and the Memorial Tournament—are contested with a cut to the low 50 and ties and any players within 10 shots of the 36-hole leader. It’s one distinction among the $20 million signature events the tour introduced four years ago…