Tiger Woods fl ips his ball to himself after finishing on the third green during the pro-am of the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament in Orlando, Fla., Wednesday.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Tiger Woods has been winning at Bay Hill before he was old enough to drive a car.

“It all started there,” Woods said Wednesday on the eve of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he is the defending champion, a seven-time champion and has a chance to return to No. 1 in the world if he can win for an eighth time.

He already has won eight times at Bay Hill if the 1991 U.S. Junior Amateur counted. Woods wound up winning against Brad Zwetschke on the first extra hole. He remembered just about all the details, except that his opponent missed a short bogey putt at the end.

Much more clear in his mind was meeting Palmer.

“He was handing out some medals to guys that have played in three Juniors, and there are only a handful of guys that had done that,” Woods said. “He was giving those guys medals and I said, `I’d like to one day play in as many Juniors as that.”’

And he did, winning the next two U.S. Junior Amateurs, and then running off three straight U.S. Amateur titles, and then joining the PGA Tour.

Woods returned to Bay Hill in 1994 and missed the cut, yet even that had a peculiar piece of history involved — it was his first 80 on the PGA Tour. He later moved a few miles down the road to Isleworth, and once joined Palmer in one of his games at Bay Hill.

“Unfortunately, lost money to him, too,” Woods said.

And if that’s not enough, both of Woods’ children were born at the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies.

“So this place, and this tournament, has a very special place in my heart,” he said.