Every at his best
Daytona Beach native surprise 1st-round leader
Talk about horses for courses, or make that Gators in the case of golfer Matt Every.
Bay Hill Club and Lodge once again brought out the best in Every, a former UF star and Daytona Beach native whose highly erratic golf game seems to settle down and come alive during the late Arnold Palmer’s tournament.
“I don’t know what it is,” Every said. “It just works out here sometimes.”
Every entered the Arnold Palmer Invitational No. 309 in the world rankings and coming off a second-round 85 at the Honda Classic but improved 20 strokes since his last round the PGA Tour to summon a 7-under par 65 Thursday. He now enters Friday’s second round with a one-shot lead over top-ranked Rory McIlroy.
“Sometimes I’m good, sometimes I’m bad,” Every said. “It’s a weird game.”
Every’s name at the top of the leaderboard is nothing new at Bay Hill, where he won in 2014 and 2015, marking his only two wins on Tour. But he also missed the cut during three of his last four API appearances and entered the week wondering who might show up.
“When I teed it up today, I was, I swear, I was just trying not to shoot myself out of the tournament,” he said.
Instead, Every played virtually flawless golf in windy, challenging conditions during the afternoon wave at Bay Hill.
He hit 10 of 14 fairways and 15 of 18 greens. Every, who teed off on the 10th hole, also made 129 feet of putts, including three birdies longer than 30 feet to card a 4-under par 32 on the front nine.
The 36-year-old said he knew it was his day when a winding, 42-foot effort found the cup for a 2 on the par-3 second hole.
“Those are just luck, especially when it’s windy out and these greens are pretty crusty already,” he said. “I think it was probably like a 40- or 50-footer that broke 6 feet and the wind’s blowing and I’m just trying to get down in two. Things like that happen when you have good days.”
Every has had a few in 2020, but too many bad days undo all his good work. During six events, he has missed three missed cuts, withdrawn from one event and suffered two final-round collapses. He followed consecutive rounds in the 60s with a fourth-round 82 at the Desert Classic, then three weeks later went 66-68-80 during the final three rounds of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
The nadir of his season, though, came during the second round of last week’s Honda Classic. Doing his best impersonation of “Tin Cup,” the popular 1996 movie about a downand-out range pro, Every hit four shots in the water to record an 11 on the par-3 5th hole — the low point of a 13-over par 85.
Every said Thursday he knew he was going to miss the cut last Friday, so he took on a back, left pin to challenge himself. After flushing four 5-irons that still ended up in the water, Every switched to a 4-iron and reached the green.
“I think I had like two balls left,” he said. “It was, I just didn’t want to have to deal with that talking about, you know, it’s just — I was ready to get out of there.”
Every left Palm Beach Gardens and met Saturday with his coach. Following a minor swing change and a 2-degree upright tweak to his irons, Every found his groove.
“It was night and day,” he said.
Meanwhile, McIlroy arrived at Bay Hill this week in complete command of his game and seeking his second API win in three years.
McIlory capitalized on favorable conditions during the morning wave to shake off a slow start and live up to his No. 1 ranking.
McIlroy, who started on the 10th hole Thursday, carded a 5-under 31 on the front nine for a 66. McIlroy managed to shoot just 1-under on the back nine, but picked up momentum with birdies on the par-5 16th and par-4 18th holes.
An eagle on the par-5 fourth hole then highlighted McIlroy’s frontnine surge and featured a 254-yard 3-iron approach out of a fairway bunker followed by a putt just inside 25 feet.
While few players are able to match McIlroy’s firepower or ability to go low, the 30-year-old from Northern Ireland is not getting ahead of himself.
“Fifty-four holes is still a long way to go,” he said. “You sort of take it one day at a time.”
Every, perhaps more than anyone on Tour, knows how quickly things can turn. The Central Florida native also realizes things have worked pretty well for him during an event he used to attend as a kid with his father.
“It’s going to be all right either way no matter what I shoot tomorrow,” Every said. “But I think I’m going to be alright this week. I’m hitting it really good. We’ll see.
“It’s only Thursday, though, I know, and there’s a lot of golf left.”