Arnold Palmer, the host for the Bay Hill Invitational in Orlando and the man after whom the tournament will be named starting next year, needs to make no apology for rooting for one player in particular this week.
Not Tiger Woods, who will be trying to take the title for a fifth time in seven years, nor any of the 16 Europeans taking part, but little-known American Sam Saunders.
The 18-year-old is the men's champion at the club, but not only that - he is one of Palmer's seven grandchildren and, not surprisingly, has been granted one of the coveted sponsor's invitations.
Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell would love to have been the recipient of another, but discovered at the weekend that he was not in the field.
It came as a bitter blow to the Ryder Cup hopeful, not simply because he has such happy memories of the event and the course after finishing joint runner-up behind Kenny Perry last year, but also because of the implications of missing out.
McDowell cannot now qualify for next week's Players Championship - golf's unofficial fifth major - and so cannot get back into the world's top 50 in time for the Masters. It was his performance at Bay Hill that earned him a debut at Augusta a year ago.
Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Greg Owen, Brian Davis and Paul Lawrie - playing his first event in America since the 2004 US Open - do have the chance, however, to try to force their way into the Masters.
Unlike a year ago, Colin Montgomerie is already sure to start at Augusta, but the eight-time European number one wants to be going there playing a lot better than he has of late.
Montgomerie has missed his last two halfway cuts, in Dubai and Perth, and after pulling out of the Nissan Open in Los Angeles to work on his game at home he somehow beat Niclas Fasth with a round of 77 in the first round of the Accenture World Matchplay, and then was over par again losing in the second round to Shingo Katayama.
Darren Clarke's season has yet to catch light, which is no surprise, of course, with his wife, Heather, continuing to battle with cancer, and him picking up a minor wrist injury.
As for Woods, who will expect stiff competition from Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen and Sergio Garcia, the year has gone as well as he could have hoped, with three wins out of three when he has made it to the weekend.
Meanwhile, should former world number one David Duval make the cut it will be his fourth of the season - the same number in the last two years combined.
Duval's 2006 stroke average stands at 70.97 compared to 75.56 last year.
