Arnold Palmer still stands unwaveringly tall despite the unsteady landscape in the sport he popularized.

The 13-foot, 1,400-pound bronze statue at Bay Hill depicting the late, great Palmer finishing one of his mighty golf swings epitomizes the power and prestige his tournament — The Arnold Palmer Invitational — still has on the PGA Tour.

The Arnie has not only survived; it has thrived in recent years in the face of seismic shifts in and around the tournament and the sport as a whole. Like Arnie himself, who emerged from blue-collar roots to become this privileged sport’s biggest and most beloved star, his tournament has battled the odds in its own right.

“It’s pretty wild to think that [Palmer’s] last win came in 1973,” golfer Xander Schauffele says, “and we’re 51 years removed from that and it still feels like he’s not just here with us, but everybody supports him and talks about him. He’s still the talk of the town.”

Back in the day, the success of The Arnie — like most PGA Tour stops — seemed to be predicated on Tiger Woods’ playing in the tournament. Because Tiger and Arnie lived in Orlando, Tiger felt obligated to play in the tournament and he won it a record eight times.

He was the annual draw as fans flooded the course to watch Tiger stalking his prey through the whispering pines and the moss-shrouded oaks of Bay Hill. When Tiger played every year at The Arnie, it was sort of like when Shaq played for the Magic. His mere presence added an unmatched marquee value the tournament never had before and hasn’t had since.

But with Tiger’s well-publicized health issues and his move to South Florida, he last played at Bay Hill six years ago and has only played here twice in the last 11 years.

Still, even in Tiger’s absence, Arnold Palmer still stands tall.

While other tournaments have ebbed and flowed, The Arnie has been the model of stability even during the most volatile time in professional golf history. The advent of filthy-rich, Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the loss of some of the Tour’s top players to the breakaway circuit has certainly cast a shadow on the future of pro golf.

But guess what? Even though two of the last four tournament champions, Bryson DeChambeau and Tyrrell Hatton, have defected to LIV, the Arnie’s field and financial stability are better than ever.

With the price of doing business escalating in an attempt to match LIV’s cash flow, some tournaments are starting to lose their title sponsors. In contrast, The Arnie has had the same title sponsor, Mastercard, for 20 years … and counting.

There was a concern when Arnie passed away nearly eight years ago that his tournament would slowly fade into the pack of other weekly, run-of-the-mill PGA Tour stops. When “The King” was alive and personally made the call to invite the Tour’s top players to play in his tournament, it was almost impossible for them to say no.

Palmer, with his charismatic personality, was the heartbeat of this tournament for decades. His death in 2016 seemingly left a void that would be impossible to fill. Could The Arnie retain its lofty status without the living embodiment of the tournament itself?

But with Arnie’s passing, the PGA Tour stepped in and first gave the Arnie “elevated” status (more prize money and additional exemptions) and now has made it one of the sport’s eight “signature events” — tournaments with limited fields and a massive purses that are essentially restricted to the Tour’s very best players.

All but one of the top 50 players who are eligible to play will tee off at Bay Hill on Thursday, including world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 2 Rory McIlroy, No. 4 Viktor Hovland, No. 5 Schauffele, No. 6 Patrick Cantlay, No. 7 Wyndham Clark, No. 8 Max Homa, No. 9 Matt Fitzpatrick and No. 10 Brian Harman.

The corporate hospitality tents and galleries will be packed this weekend with cheering spectators who will hearken us back to the days of Arnie’s Army. There’s just something magical about walking the course at Bay Hill that makes you feel a sort of surreal, spiritual connection to the King himself.

Arnie has loved this place ever since he was a sophomore golfer at Wake Forest in 1948 when his team came to town for a match against Rollins College. Arnie was so enamored with the natural beauty of Central Florida, he actually considered transferring to Rollins.

Then in 1965, the original developers of Bay Hill invited Arnie and Jack Nicklaus to town for an exhibition match to promote their new course. Arnie once again fell in love with Orlando and would end up buying Bay Hill from them.

“This was all orange groves and two-lane roads when we started,” Arnie told me once. “We were here before Disney.”

And he still is.

Just go stand next to that statue and tell me you don’t feel his indomitable spirit.

Despite the death of the King, the demise of the Tiger and the disarray on the Tour, Arnold Palmer still stands unwaveringly tall.

Long live the Arnie!

©2024 Orlando Sentinel. Visit orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.