It’s Bay Hill week on the PGA Tour and Matt Every is back at the scene of the greatest triumph of his golf career.
Both of them, actually. And we probably should say the greatest triumphs of his first golf career.
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Now, while working on his second life in golf — one with cameras and microphones instead of 36-hole cuts or even clubs — he seems to mix a bit of relief along with a dose of the old competitive fire.
Matt Every is building a new career in golf. One without the clubs.
The relief: “My days trying to play the Tour, they’ve been long gone for a while. Mentally, I’m not even close to being there.”
The fire: “I mean this, I’m really excited about the TV stuff. I know it can be political in this industry, but I know, overall, talent wins in the long run, and I feel good about that.”
Back at Bay Hill for Arnold Palmer Invitational: All talk, no action, and he’s fine with that
Every, 42, is a Daytona Beach native whose twin highlights were back-to-back wins at Bay Hill in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, in 2014 and 2015. After that, his results slowly and then quickly trended southward and now he’s nearly three years removed from his last start.
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He lives in Jacksonville, about 20 miles from the PGA Tour’s home office and its splashy broadcast studio, where he’s now refocusing his golfing interests. He’s co-host of the Golf Channel’s “The Drop” on Monday nights, as well as the DraftKings-sponsored PGA Tour Live Betcast.
The Betcast show is a real-time, live-streaming broadcast on ESPN+ coinciding with the Tour’s biggest non-majors, known as “signature events,” such as this week’s event at Bay Hill in Orlando, where Every was spending the early week shooting spots for upcoming shows.
Unlike too many tournament weeks in the past, he’s enjoying all of it.
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“It’s like, where do you fit? Obviously, the goal is to be on network TV, but there are only so many spots,” he says. “The last couple of years, the way things have gone, I just keep my head down and keep filling up the cup every day, and then eventually good things will happen.
“I’m a big believer that talent wins over anything. I already feel like I’ve gained some momentum in this (TV) game, and that’s what it is — it’s a game.”
Matt Every plays just enough golf ‘to keep myself honest’
After his second straight Bay Hill win in 2015, Every reached No. 40 in the world rankings, but it didn’t take long for fairways to start dodging his tee shots — a wayward driver was a big undoing. By year’s end, he was No. 123, and following the next year, he was outside the top 500.
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The slide happened fast, but he’s in no hurry to attempt a rebirth between the ropes. Maybe because he doesn’t have a lot of time most weeks. He has a 13-year-old son who plays travel baseball and an 11-year-old daughter who plays travel softball. There go the weekends. And there’s his TV duties.
Nowadays, he says, he plays one or two 18-hole rounds a month, and might hit balls on the range for 30 minutes when he has time to kill.
That’s enough, for now.
“I do enjoy it, and I miss playing it, for sure,” he says. “But I have to work. I’ve got to do something else in my life. I don’t want to completely leave the game. I like doing what I’m doing now; it keeps me around it.
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“I don’t like going to play golf and not know where the ball is going. That might be part of the reason I still play a little, just to keep myself honest. To get where I got, I had to be pretty selfish. It’s not my turn anymore, it’s my kids’ turn.”
Matt Every gets the goods from tournament host Arnold Palmer in 2014 after the first of Every’s back-to-back wins at Bay Hill.
PGA Tour Champions in his future? Never say never
Before playing professionally, Every had a highly decorated amateur career while playing collegiately at the University of Florida, where he was a three-time, first-team All American and won the 2006 Ben Hogan Award, given to the nation’s top college golfer.
He was also a member of America’s winning Walker Cup team in 2005, the same year he was low amateur in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
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Looking back, that was Act 1 of a golfing life that cut its teeth at Riviera Golf Club in Ormond Beach. Act 2 grossed him more than $10 million on the PGA Tour. A potential Act 3, as a player, is roughly eight years away, when he’d be old enough to play the 50-and-over PGA Tour Champions. The kids will be college-age, and yes, it’s already in the back of his mind.
“That’s a different story,” he says. “Now that I don’t practice so much, I take care of my body better than I have my whole life. I think, if you stay explosive and flexible, I don’t think talent ever really leaves you.
“As long as I’m physically able, absolutely, it might be something I’ll entertain, for sure.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Arnold Palmer Invitational 2026: Matt Every is back at Bay Hill
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