Arnold Palmer Invitational odds, picks: Scottie Scheffler returns as massive favorite

The best players on the PGA Tour have descended upon Central Florida for the illustrious Arnold Palmer Invitational, the fourth Signature Event of the year.

This year’s field features 72 players, including recent PGA Tour winners Joe Highsmith and Brian Campbell. World No. 3 Xander Schauffele, who has had a rib injury for the past few months, will also return to competition at Bay Hill. He played through the pain at the season-opening event at The Sentry in Maui and tied for 30th, a far cry from what many have come to expect from the 2024 PGA Championship winner and current Champion Golfer of the Year.

Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy also headline the field, with both players arriving at Bay Hill with the best odds to win. Other notables include Genesis Invitational winner Ludvig Åberg, two-time major winner Collin Morikawa, and Hideki Matsuyama, who set a PGA Tour scoring record at The Sentry.

Yet, two of the game’s most popular players will watch this week from the sideline. Jordan Spieth did not receive one of the four sponsor’s exemptions and Rickie Fowler did not get the nod either. Both players will play in The Players Championship next week.

Like the Genesis Invitational, the Arnold Palmer Invitational will institute a 36-hole cut at the midway point. The top 50 players and ties and any player within 10 shots of the lead will qualify for the final 36 holes.

Arnold Palmer Invitational Odds:

Here are the latest odds for players to win the 2025 Cognizant Classic, courtesy of FanDuel:

Scottie Scheffler +320

Rory McIlroy +750

Ludvig Åberg +1600

Xander Schauffele +1600

Collin Morikawa +2200

Hideki Matsuyama +2500

Justin Thomas +2800

Patrick Cantlay +3000

Tommy Fleetwood +3000

Sungjae Im +4500

Will Zalatoris +5000

Russell Henley +5000

Keegan Bradley +5500

Sam Burns +5500

Matt Fitzpatrick +5500

Shane Lowry +5500

Viktor Hovland +5500

Maverick McNealy +5500

Wyndham Clark +6000

Robert MacIntyre +6000

Tony Finau +6000

Taylor Pendrith +6000

Daniel Berger +6500

Sepp Straka +7000

Corey Conners +7000

Tom Kim +7500

Michael Kim +8000

Jason Day +8000

Si Woo Kim +8000

Ben Griffin +8000

Akshay Bhatia +8000

Denny McCarthy +9000

Adam Scott +9000

Min Woo Lee +9000

Davis Thompson +9000

Playing Through’s Picks:

Jack Milko — Staff Writer, Golf

History will repeat itself at Arnie’s Place, as World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will pick up his first victory of 2025 at Bay Hill — just as he did a year ago.

After slicing his hand on Christmas Day, the reigning Masters champion missed the month of January and made his season debut at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in early February. He tied for ninth there but then posted a T-25 the following week in Phoenix. That result at TPC Scottsdale would have been much better if not for a back-nine 41 on Sunday — Scheffler made three bogies and somehow doubled the benign par-4 18th. Similar sentiments could be said about his play the following week at Torrey Pines, where he tied for third despite firing a 4-over 76 on day three. Scheffler looked out of sorts during that third round, but rallied into contention on Sunday with a 6-under 66. He turned it around at Torrey, and now looks ready to enter the winner’s circle again.

Another reason why I like Scheffler this week has to do with his biggest weakness.

Last year at Bay Hill, Scheffler switched from a mallet putter to a spider putter, hoping that would end his struggles on the greens. It did. The move paid off in historic fashion, as Scheffler went on a Tiger-like tear for the following five months.

But this year, Scheffler, with his spider putter and newly adopted claw grip, ranks 30th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained putting. He is also 11th in overall putting average, needing just 27.92 putts per round thus far. Considering Scheffler continues to hit the ball on a string from tee-to-green, his improvement on the greens should yield terrific results — especially on a course where he has had plenty of success. He’s won here twice before, so what stops him from winning a third cardigan sweater?

FanDuel Odds: Scheffler to win at +320

RJ Ochoa — Senior Producer, Blogging the Boys

This is a big week for the PGA Tour as it is the penultimate one before The Players. Obviously we are still a bit away from the major season getting fully off and running, but anyone who has been watching golf knows that when we reach Bay Hill… it is serious.

Last year was The Year of Scottie Scheffler in more ways than one, including at the API, and while I am not trying to predict a decline there, I think we are about to see another star on Tour reach a new level.

For this week I am going in a chalk-ish sort of direction, but not to the full extent. Wyndham Clark finished behind only Scottie in this tournament last year and I think that we are on the verge of seeing a great run from him in the coming months. Clark is pretty high on the OWGR list which is certainly not something we should draw serious conclusions off of these days… ultimately I like his odds to repeat with a strong showing here and take off into 2025.

FanDuel Odds: Clark to win at +6000

Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Mark Schofield — Staff Writer, NFL and Formula 1

If you are going to score well at Bay Hill, you need to be accurate with your irons.

Enter Patrick Cantlay.

Heading into the Arnold Palmer Invitational Cantlay ranks third on the tour in Greens in Regulation with 76.39%, behind only Nicolai Højgaard and Sepp Straka. Cantlay has hit 220 of 288 greens in regulation this year, a truly impressive rate. He is also second in birdie average, behind only Collin Morikawa with an average of 5.56 birdies per round.

He also shook off a tough start at The Genesis the last time out to finish tied for fifth at -8 under. That came after an opening-round 74 that had him 2 over par heading into Friday. Cantlay went 70, 68 and 68 over his final three days to charge up the leaderboard, and were it not for some unfortunate bogeys on his final two rounds, he might have threatened for the lead.

He’ll do just that this week.

FanDuel Odds: Cantlay to win at +3000

Photo by Carmen Mandato/TGL/TGL via Getty Images

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.