Arnold Palmer Invitational champ Tyrrell Hatton gets the win to match outsized personality

Brash, loud Tyrrell Hatton kept his emotions in check long enough to emerge as the champion on a difficult Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational

Tyrrell Hatton can best be described with a single word: colorful.

The 28-year-old Englishman isn’t one to keep his emotions buried deep inside. Anyone following him on a golf course knows exactly how he feels after every shot. This is a man who once nicknamed himself “Headcase Hatton,” a nod to his frequent outbursts of anger and frustration.

The full swing of emotions for Hatton was on display on the 11th hole on Sunday at Bay Hill during the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Hatton, chasing his first career PGA Tour title in his 60th start, had a three-shot lead heading to the back-nine. But on the par-four, his tee shot landed in the water hazard and led to a double bogey, dropping his lead to one.

Over the course of a single hole, Hatton flipped off the hazard and pretended to shoot it with a shotgun, muttering to himself and slamming his putter on the ground the entire way.

Hatton, though, then displayed another one of his qualities: toughness and fortitude. He finished the tournament with seven straight pars, holding off Marc Leishman by one shot and earning the right to slip on Arnie’s famous alpaca red cardigan.

Hatton inspires a range of opinions among golf fans. Some love him for his forthrightness. Others despite him for his boorish behavior. But there is no denying that Hatton is one of the most captivated players currently on the PGA Tour, one that reminds fans of how hard the game can be even for the most talented.

He had to use every bit of that talent this week because Bay Hill wasn’t giving anything away. Hatton’s winning score of four-under is the highest in a non-major on the PGA Tour since 2014. The best players in the world combined to hit just 50.5 percent of greens in regulation throughout the week, the lowest rate on tour in 15 years.

Hatton felt the wrath of Arnie’s course after taking his drop on 11 but calmed down from there. On the difficult par-three 17th, with Leishman waiting to steal the lead away, Hatton safely landed his tee shot short of the hole and had it roll 20 feet past on Bay Hill’s rock-hard greens. Then on the 18th, playing as the most difficult hole on the course, Hatton drove his tee shot down the center of the fairway. After a lengthy discussion with his caddie about what club to hit, he pulled the right one and found the green just to the left of the hole. A two-putt later and Hatton was a PGA Tour champion.

It took a win to render Hatton speechless, barely able to get through a post-round interview with NBC. Later, he admitted he was proud of the way he kept his cool after the double-bogey, something rare for him.

“I said yesterday the hardest thing for me will be to manage myself, and over the course of this week I feel like I did a decent job of that,” he said at his victory press conference. “It was so tough and obviously everyone is dropping shots quite easily. After the double on 11, which was pretty tough to take…I feel like i could’ve easily blown up after that and managed to keep my head a little bit. Although I did get a bit frustrated, that’s always going to happen with me. As long as it’s not keeping on to the next shot I’ll be okay, and I’m just happy that I managed myself well enough to be sitting here.”

Leishman, the 2017 champion, had a chance to tie Hatton at 17 when his birdie putt slid inches to the left of the hole. It wasn’t a banner weekend for 2018 champion Rory McIlroy, who managed his seventh straight top-five finish but shot a four-over 76 on Sunday. Only one player, Matthew Fitzpatrick, broke 70 the final two rounds.

It was the type of fast, windy conditions that Palmer would’ve loved. The tournament’s namesake played the game with a passion that brought golf out of the country clubs and to the masses. Hatton is much the same, and although he admits he never had the chance to meet Palmer, they’re both linked by the red sweater that Hatton proudly donned at Arnie’s place on Sunday.