Bay Hill Golf Club

Bay Hill Club opened in 1961 with a Dick Wilson routing on a piece of Orlando, Florida lake-and-pine land that founder Arnold Palmer eventually bought in 1976 and made his permanent home club. Palmer kept the original Wilson design substantially intact but added strategic adjustments through the decades, and the course became the centerpiece of his Florida winter base — Palmer played out of Bay Hill for the last forty years of his life. The Arnold Palmer Invitational has been played at Bay Hill every March since 1979, making it one of the longest continuous PGA Tour host relationships in the modern era.

The course plays around 7,400 yards par 72 from the championship markers, with bermuda fairways and a slope in the upper 140s. The sixteenth is a 545-yard par-5 across a lake that wraps the front and right side of the green; the seventeenth, a 219-yard par-3 from the championship tees with a green set on a peninsula, and the eighteenth, a 458-yard par-4 with water cutting the entire approach, are the routing's tournament-defining stretch. Arnold Palmer's seven-iron approach to the eighteenth on Sunday in 1990 — the year he won the tournament he had hosted for over a decade — is one of the most-replayed moments of his late-career television presence.

Bay Hill is part of a resort community Palmer developed around the course, with member access and guest lodging at the on-property hotel. The Arnold Palmer Invitational rotation keeps the course in continuous PGA Tour readiness. Caddies are available; walking is permitted but most rounds use carts.

Central Florida climate keeps Bay Hill playable year-round, with the firmest conditions in February and March — the API tournament window. Summer humidity and afternoon thunderstorms compress mid-day rounds through July and August. Palmer's legacy at Bay Hill — including the bronze statue at the clubhouse and the ongoing API charitable mission — is part of the resort identity, and the course operates as much as a memorial to his career as a championship venue.