Justin Lower shares his memorable encounter with Arnold Palmer at Bay Hill - “I was like, 'This is going to be awesome'"

Justin Lower recently shared an incident close to his heart while competing at the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational tournament. The American professional golfer recounted a time from his youth, specifically during the 2002 Senior PGA Championship at Firestone Country Club.

Back then, Lower was just a 13 or 14-year-old kid and had the opportunity to observe Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Jim Colbert play a practice round. He vividly remembered a moment when Palmer looked around and asked if anyone wanted to hit the bunker shot. Without hesitation, Lower indicated his eagerness with a yes.

Justin Lower said (via Golf Digest):

"He kind of looked at it, and it was a tough shot over a bunker, and he goes, 'Does anyone want to hit this shot?' And I was 13, maybe 14 at the time, and I stepped right up, I was like, 'I'll hit it.' And I had my hand on his wedge, and this huge hand out of nowhere just comes back, and he grabs me like that [on the forearm] and he's like, 'Don't worry, son, I'll take it from here'."

Lower also shared his immense excitement during that moment. However, he didn't get the chance to take the shot himself.

"I was so, like, excited. I was like, 'This is going to be awesome, all these people to hit it.' In the end, I didn't get a chance to hit it, but, yeah, just a cool story, for sure," he said.

For the uninitiated, Justin Lower won the 2010 Arnold Palmer Award as a medalist at the NAIA Men’s Golf Championship while being an amateur.

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How many tournaments has Justin Lower participated in 2024 so far?

Justin Lower has played seven tournaments in the 2024 season so far. He made the cut for six of them alongside a top-10 finish. Lower started the season with Sony Open in Hawaii where he finished the event with a T74 position and earned $16,019.

Subsequently, the 34-year-old golfer competed in The American Express, securing a T39 position on the leaderboard. It earned him $34,020 in prize money.

Following that, Lower entered the Farmers Insurance Open, where he finished in the T43 spot, bagging $28,530. He then went on to achieve a T53 finish at the WM Phoenix Open, earning $20,529.

Lower's best finish this season so far came at the Mexico Open at Vidanta where he stood in the T3 position alongside C.T. Pan and Stephan Jaeger. He was just five strokes behind the winner, Jake Knapp. His stunning finish earned him a whopping amount of $429,300.

Justin Lower last participated in Cognizant Classic where he missed making the cut. The golfer is now back in action at the ongoing Arnold Palmer Invitational with his T2 finish after the first round.