Orlando amateur standout Sam Saunders probably has played the tournament course more times than t... Saunders shooting for long

Orlando amateur standout Sam Saunders probably has played the tournament course more times than the rest of the Bay Hill Invitational's 120-man field combined, so he's swinging for the fences with his aspirations this week.

"Best-case scenario? To win," Saunders said, laughing. "It would be crazy to do that here, but you've got to shoot high, and that's kind of what I'm going for."

Or, on the scorecard, shoot low. Which is exactly what the Trinity Prep senior did last month when he finished 8 under to win the Bay Hill men's title by 17 strokes. It was the second men's title for Saunders, 18, who finishes school May 11 and will play at Clemson in the fall.

Winning a tournament with the top four players in the world rankings is a bit premature, but making the cut seems realistic enough. Saunders won the state high school title as a junior and is the 10th-ranked junior player in the country by Golfweek magazine. He plays often with the club's many tour pros.

"He'll hang in there, for sure," said Dicky Pride, a tour regular who plays practice rounds with Saunders frequently. "It's going to be a big test for him. He's going to learn a lot this week."

Mostly, Saunders is hoping to see how he measures up, a chance not often afforded most teenage players. But not everybody has event host Arnold Palmer for a grandfather, which is how Saunders landed a sponsor exemption in the first place.

"Most everyone in my age and my position have not had the opportunity, but I'm going to use it to my advantage and see what it's like, and definitely try to learn as much as I can," Saunders said.

For whatever it's worth, when an 18-year-old named Tiger Woods was the defending U.S. Amateur champion at Bay Hill in 1994, he shot 80-77 to miss the cut by 10 shots.

Scott Hoch was making the rounds at Bay Hill on Monday, reacquainting himself with his old pals. He hasn't seen most of the PGA Tour since last year. Hoch had reconstructive surgery on his left wrist in October. A tendon was transplanted in his ailing left wrist, and some loose bodies were removed from the back of his hand, leaving two scars. Hoch, a Bay Hill member, isn't sure when he'll return to tour play but said he finally began lightly swinging a club this week.

Now he needs to grit his teeth and break loose the adhesions because the range of motion in the wrist still is limited. Hoch hasn't played in any tournament golf since competing in the unofficial Tavistock Cup matches at Isleworth last March.

Turns out that Palmer called Honda Classic winner Luke Donald on Sunday night in an 11th-hour attempt to persuade the Englishman to enter this week's festivities at Bay Hill. Even though fields are finalized on the Friday night preceding the tournament week, Donald, who moved up to 10th in the world rankings with the win Sunday in Palm Beach Gardens, still could have opted in. The winner of the previous week's event has the option to play the following week if he chooses.

It isn't often that Palmer strikes out, but Donald, the first Englishman to win a 72-hole event in the States since 1999, had friends flying in for a visit. According to his agent, Jon Wagner, Donald was taking his pals on a tour of South Florida's best courses, including Seminole Golf Club, considered by many to be the state's best course.

Woods, a four-time Bay Hill champion, didn't play a practice round Tuesday but will tee off at 6:50 a.m. today, the earliest starting time in the pro-am. . . . The pro-am isn't as heavy on celebrities as last year's event, which featured sports stars Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts and Roger Clemens, a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher. This year's only notables are baseball great Yogi Berra and lead singer Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish. . . . It pays to live in the neighborhood. Longtime Bay Hill member Patrick Damron, a Nationwide Tour player, received a sponsor exemption over the weekend when Bernhard Langer qualified for the tournament and no longer required the free pass he'd been given by tournament officials.

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