{"id":26660,"date":"2026-03-06T22:26:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/arnold-palmer-invitational-daniel-berger-has-three-shot-lead-as-rory-mcilroy-struggles-at-bay-hill\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T22:26:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:26:02","slug":"arnold-palmer-invitational-daniel-berger-has-three-shot-lead-as-rory-mcilroy-struggles-at-bay-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/arnold-palmer-invitational-daniel-berger-has-three-shot-lead-as-rory-mcilroy-struggles-at-bay-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Arnold Palmer Invitational: Daniel Berger has three-shot lead as Rory McIlroy struggles at Bay Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Daniel Berger hit an opening round of nine under to take a three-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 32-year-old has suffered a run of injuries &#8211; including a back issue which sidelined him for 18 months &#8211; and fractured a finger at the BMW Championship in August last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But having returned to full fitness, the American made six birdies on the back nine on his way to shooting a 63 &#8211; one short of the Bay Hill course record.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think the biggest thing for me is just getting in a bit of a rhythm,&#8221; said Berger. &#8220;When you come back [from injury], you are just kind of getting back into the flow of things and getting into your routine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I have really played not that poorly, I just haven&#8217;t had the results. You just kind of keep doing the same things and good things will come, so that&#8217;s kind of where I feel like I am at.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A double bogey on the 13th hole, followed by dropped shots on the 14th and 18th, proved costly for Northern Ireland&#8217;s Rory McIlroy as he had to settle for a level-par round.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">World number one Scottie Scheffler is at two under, marking the first time the four-time major winner has hit better than a 72 in his past three tournaments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think being satisfied is always a bit of a stretch in golf,&#8221; said Scheffler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I feel like I did some really good things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I felt like I made a couple mistakes that I shouldn&#8217;t have, but overall I did some really good stuff out there. Anything under par on this golf course is a decent score.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sweden&#8217;s Ludvig Aaberg sunk a long eagle putt on 12 as a strong finish left him three shots behind Berger on six under.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Open champion Collin Morikawa also hit a 66 to stand a shot clear of his fellow American Cameron Young and Venezuela&#8217;s Jhonattan Vegas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/golf\/articles\/czx4r53dzp7o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daniel Berger hit an opening round of nine under to take a three-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational. The 32-year-old has suffered a run of injuries &#8211; including a back issue which sidelined him for 18 months &#8211; and fractured a finger at the BMW Championship in August last year. But having returned to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26662,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26660\/revisions\/26662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}