Arnold Palmer Invitational First-Round Leader Tips: A trio of picks from 45/1 to 80/1

• 50/151.00 Corey Conners is a former FRL at Bay Hill 

• 80/181.00 Chris Kirk is a proven fast starter in Florida

• 45/146.00 Russell Henley continued his streak of good starts last week 

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Weather forecast for Thursday/FRL history

Slightly unusually for a PGA Tour event, in four of the last five years we've had an outright R1 leader at Bay Hill.

A 65 was the magic number for Matt Every (2020), Rory McIlroy (2022) and Jon Rahm (2023) while Shane Lowry did it via a 66 last year.

McIlroy was also joint-leader with Corey Conners thanks to 66 in 2021.

Four of the six first-round leaders across those five years had afternoon tee-times although plenty of morning starters filled the each-way slots.

Thursday's weather hints at another p.m. starter leading the way although, due to the limited field of 72, only 22 players hit their first tee shot after midday.

It's blowing at around 18mph for most of the morning and gusting higher before dropping to 15mph with fewer gusts from 1pm.

Temperatures are also higher in the afternoon (mid-70s) so looking in the bottom third of the tee-time sheet might be smart.

Corey Conners @ 50/151.00

The clock will have flipped from a.m. to p.m just before Corey Conners tees off so the Canadian looks to be in a good slot.

As mentioned, he's been a FRL here before in 2021 while another 66 lifted him from 50th to third at halfway in 2023 so he can post low rounds on this tough course.

Conners has finishing positions here of 3-11-21-18 which very few can match and he's generally been starting well in 2025.

An opening 66 at The Sentry put him fourth after 18 holes while he's been 11th (Phoenix) and 14th (Genesis) after day one in his latest two starts.

Conners looks a good bet at 50/151.00 to set the pace again from his 12.05 tee-time.

Chris Kirk @ 80/181.00

At a bigger price, the later starter (12.25pm) I like is Chris Kirk.

Kirk won last year's Cognizant Classic and consistently comes out of the blocks fast in Florida tournaments.

Looking at his last 10 starts in the Sunshine State he's twice ended round one in second place while on five other occasions, including each of the last four, he's ended the opening lap 16th or better.

Narrowing it down to Bay Hill his FRL positions in the last three editions read 8-2-11, Kirk shooting in the 60s each time.

His overall form this season isn't much but in two of his last four starts he's ended the first day with a spring in his step thanks to a 64 at The American Express and a 66 at last week's Cognizant Classic.

Those two good openers put him third and 16th respectively on the R1 leaderboard.

Russell Henley @ 45/146.00

McIlroy and Lowry both have afternoon tee-times so are options but I can't get away from Russell Henley at 45/146.00.

Along with Knapp's jackpot, we also landed an each-way return with Henley in this market last week after a 63 put him second after round one.

And everything points to shoving some of those winning chips back his way.

Two starts earlier, Henley was the FRL at Pebble Beach and he's ended lap one in the top 25 in each of his last nine outings.

With three top 10s in his last four starts, the 35-year-old American is in excellent form and he was fourth at Bay Hill last year, adding to a 13th in 2022.

Henley was the halfway leader in this event 12 months ago and fourth through 18 holes so he's finished day one inside the top four in two of his last three Florida starts.

He's in the seventh to last group out at 12.50pm.

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