South African professional golfer Christiaan Bezuidenhout is at the top of the leaderboard, tied for 2nd place after the first round of the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Bezuidenhout will hope to take that confidence acquired from his -3 69 at Bay Hill on Thursday, into the rest of the weekend.
He’s tied with American Keegan Bradley, Corey Connors of Canada and Shane Lowry of Ireland, who are all two shots behind leader Wyndham Clark. Clark is a US Open Champion.
The 30-year-old is playing his sixth Arnold Palmer tournament and appeared to be at ease with the course. The weather conditions during Bezuidenhout’s round also favoured his game.
His 3 under 69 was made up of four birdies and a bogey and a 72% success rate when it came to hitting the greens [13 of 18].
His hands around the green looked soft and composed, chipping and putting with confidence on the 16th hole to birdie his way to the top of the pack.
Bezuidenhout currently plays on the PGA tour, is ranked 54th in the world and has more than enough talent and experience under his belt to earn a piece of the $20,000,000 purse.
Of the six tournaments he’s played in, his best finish was 7th place in 2021. He missed the cut in 2023 and finished 44th overall last year. He’s averaged 8 under in his last five events.
“This golf course is always going to play hard, with wind, without wind. If you're not going to keep it in play, there's going to be a lot of bogey’s on this course. I did that well today and yeah, I just hit a lot of greens, and I just tried to make a lot of pars today,” Bezuidenhout told a reliable golf source.