Bay Hill brought some of the world's best golfers to their knees

Bay Hill is meant to be one of the toughest courses on the PGA Tour (and you could play it yourself!). Just ask Justin Rose, who stumbled to a second round of 80, or Justin Thomas, who missed the cut after a pair of 79s. 

Miss the fairways here and it is one of the rare courses that penalises even the best in the world. But for the first two rounds it seemed that nobody told Daniel Berger. He opened with a 63 and followed it with a 68 to lead by five at 13 under par.

He played the next 36 holes in two under. And it wasn’t good enough. After 72 holes he was tied at 15 under with Akshay Bhatia. Off they went to a playoff. Bhatia took four, Berger five. It was the first time Bhatia had been in front and it was good enough to give him the title.

Afterwards, Bhatia said: "Everyone knows when you show up to Bay Hill it's going to be a test and to play one of the hardest golf courses. To succeed is really cool, and I can't thank the tournament enough."

There was a welcome return to form for Sweden's Ludvig Aberg, who ended three strokes back in tied-third alongside Cameron Young, while Collin Morikawa was fifth ahead of Sahith Theegala and Russell Henley.

But spare a thought for Berger, who nonetheless qualified for The Open as a result of his runner-up finish. 

He said: "I'm proud of myself. Obviously it didn't go the way I wanted it to, but at the start of the week, if you told me I would have a chance on the 18th hole to win Bay Hill, I would be ecstatic with that. A lot of positives, a lot of things to learn from. I think my game is sharp, just need to clean a few things up here and there. It's tough to win. I feel like I did a good job, and a shot here or there was the difference."

Coming into the event, he had won four times but it is fair to say that he is a golfer who has experienced plenty of highs and low. He won the FedEx St Jude in 2016 and successfully defended the title the following year. He then had to wait until 2020 for his next victory, at the Charles Schwab Challenge as the world recovered from COVID. Berger won when Collin Morikawa missed a short putt for par on the first playoff hole. He had a streak of 32 consecutive rounds at par or better in 2019-20, the eighth-longest streak since 1983.

And he won again at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am the following year and made the 2021 US Ryder Cup team that thrashed Europe at Whistling Straits.

But Berger’s career has been blighted by injury, the latest of which was a broken finger suffered at the BMW Championship. It meant he missed four months. He also missed 18 months from the 2022 US Open to the start of the 2024 season while recovering from a bad back while avoiding surgery. He also has suffered wrist and thumb injuries.

Of course, Bay Hill got its own back. It wasn’t the rough that turned many of the world’s leading golfers into jabbering wrecks. Instead it was the greens. They started off playing hard and fast. They finished the week like marble table-tops, all moisture gone.

They tried the patience of every player in the field. Scottie Scheffler looked on in disbelief when he played a bunker shot and watched the ball roll off the green. Scheffler being Scheffler, he holed the subsequent chip. But when he missed yet another putt on the final green he threw his ball into the water in sheer anger and frustration. We saw a lot of that over the course of the four days. It has to be said that the putting surfaces were close to being unplayable. It was like watching a US Open. 

Scheffler said he felt like the course had beaten him up. He finished tied-24th to leave him outside the top 10 in successive PGA Tour events for the first time in a year.

Rory McIlroy withdrew ahead of the third round, citing pain in his back. He had played his way onto the fringes of contention but you can take it from me that he would have watched his fellow players struggling over the weekend and been relieved to have his feet up. He will be back in action this week at the Players Championship.