ORLANDO, Fla. — There have been four first-time winners on the PGA Tour over the past five weeks and if that seems like an uncommonly large amount, there’s a good reason: Because it is.

By comparison, starting in January 2021, it took 25 tournaments before there were that many first-timers who broke into the winner’s circle. The preceding year, it took 20 events; the year before that, 16; and the year before that, 21.

What’s the reason behind this recent run? It’s tough to chalk it up to much more than coincidence, but there are similarities between the four winners — notably, it wouldn’t have surprised anyone if we’d been told that Luke List, Tom Hoge, Scottie Scheffler and Sepp Straka would each finally triumph this year. Perhaps only Scheffler was at or near the top of the theoretical “best player without a victory” list, but it’s not like the others popped up out of nowhere.

And it might not stop this week, either.

I’ve got another player seeking his first career victory listed as my favorite outright play for this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, and like those others, it’s one which will hardly come as a surprise when he does finally win.

Will Zalatoris (25/1): The statheads (myself included) love an event where putting stats are neutralized and this one might fit that profile as well as any on the annual schedule.

The following numbers are where the top-nine players on last year’s API leaderboard ranked in strokes gained putting by week’s end: 21st-37th-13th-22nd-5th-18th-4th-41st-58th.

Look, I’m not about to suggest that this tourney is all about ball-striking and only ball-striking; it’s still better to make putts than miss them and there’s a non-zero chance that somebody can hit the ball only moderately well and roll in putts from everywhere to claim this title.

What the numbers show us, however, is that the driver and irons will offer players a bigger edge this week than any putting advantage. Enter Zalatoris, who in his short time as a world-class player has proven himself as an elite-level ball-striker with an often-balky, tough-to-watch putting stroke. What we’ve found so far is that this combination is often enough to get him into the mix, but hasn’t been enough to get him a victory, as evidenced by finishes of 26th-2nd-6th in his three starts already this year.

He did come close in that middle one, losing to List in a playoff at Torrey Pines, which hints at another contention coming soon. In his first career API start last year, he finished T-10, which is enough to confirm my suspicions about his game setting up well for this tourney.

Keith Mitchell (15/2): While I realize my weekly previews are getting dangerously close to looking like a Keith Mitchell fan page, there’s zero reason to hop off the bandwagon now. In five starts so far in 2022, Mitchell now owns four results of 12th -or-better, including a T-9 last week at the Honda. Now he’ll head to API, where he has finishes of T-5 and T-6 in three career starts.

The truth is, I think his driving prowess should help him more at Bay Hill than it did at PGA National, where he won his lone PGA Tour title three years ago, as strokes gained off the tee should serve as a more relevant metric this week.