The Genesis Invitational Preview and Picks

The weather played a factor over the weekend but players still went low at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. We once again had three players in contention on Sunday but had to settle for a T2 with Sepp Straka with Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley finishing in the top 20. Colin Morikawa birdied the 72nd hole to claim a one shot victory, his first win in over two years, a span of 45 starts and it was certainly fulfilling both professionally and personally. The PGA Tour remains in California for a second straight week and a second straight signature event with The Genesis Invitational as it returns to The Riviera Country Club.

The Genesis was forced to move to Torrey Pines South Course last season because of the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area and Riviera will be hosting for the 62nd time. The Riviera Country Club is a par 71 that will play to 7,322 yards and it is one of the most classic and traditional courses on tour. While short on paper, it makes up for in difficulty as fairways are a challenge to find and greens are hard to hit. The difference is 10 percent for both as the PGA Tour average in hitting fairways is 61 percent but it is just 51 percent here while greens in regulation is 56 percent at Riviera compared to 66 percent everywhere else.

Being an accurate driver of the golf ball is not the path to victory however as it is the iron play factored in that is the biggest asset with the last three winners here finishing just 27th, 63rd and 58th in Driving Accuracy. Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green was the top key statistical category last week and is again this week as of the last eight winners of The Genesis on this course, seven have finished in the top three in SG: T2G while seven of the last eight winners have finished in the top seven in Greens In Regulation. The Poa annua greens are difficult to hit and not easy to roll on either so Strokes Gained: Putting and Putting Average are key as well.

Course history is vital here as only two of the last 20 winners at Riviera had played it fewer than four times so we have to look at experience and having success certainly helps. Over the last four editions at Riviera from 2021-2024, there are five players that have at least three top 20s, Max Homa (four), Scottie Scheffler (four), Viktor Hovland (four), Patrick Cantlay (three) and Colin Morikawa (three). We also have to look at correlating events with the top ones being the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South Course, the Truist Championship at Quail Hollow and the Cognizant Classic at PGA National Golf Club.

While last week was a no cut event with 80 players, The Genesis Invitational field is 72 players with a cut as the top 50 and ties along with players within 10 shots will play the weekend. Being a signature event, we are getting the best of the best again as 18 of the OWGR top 20 players will be teeing it up this week. Defending champion Ludvig Aberg shot a final round 66 to win by one shot over Maverick McNealy but of course that comes with an asterisk as it was played at Torrey Pines South. The defending champion at Riviera is Hideki Matsuyama who fired a Sunday 62 as he was +8.47 in Strokes Gained in round four.

Rain is expected early in the week leading into Thursday but Friday through Sunday look to be mostly rain free with moderate wins throughout the weekend.

From a statistical standpoint, it is pretty straight forward with our top three key categories being:

Strokes Gained: Tee-To-Green
Greens In Regulation Percentage
Putting Average

Each bet is Win/Top Five/Top Ten. The typical recommendation is 50%/25%/25% with odds, payouts and results based on a $1000 unit (easy round number for bookkeeping) on each of the following players. The payouts are listed right below the odds which are all from DraftKings:

Patrick Cantlay
Odds: Win 2,700 ~ Top Five 435 ~ Top Ten 200
Payout: Win 1,350.00 ~ Top Five 108.75 ~ Top Ten 50.00

Cantlay was in and out of contention at Pebble Beach and a closing 65 brings some momentum into this week. A 71 at Spyglass on Friday was to his detriment and he heads to Riviera where he has played well with a third in 2023 and a T4 in 2024 and also has strong finishes last year at Torrey Pines South with a T5 and a T4 at the Truist. He has a T14 and a T13 this season while missing the cut at the Farmers where he gained strokes everywhere except for on the greens. However, he is coming off his second best putting performance last week since the U.S. Open, a span of 11 starts and he comes in No. 5 in GIR Percentage and No. 17 SG: Tee-To-Green.

Matt Fitzpatrick
Odds: Win 3,600 ~ Top Five 560 ~ Top Ten 250
Payout: Win 1,800.00 ~ Top Five 140.00 ~ Top Ten 62.50

We were on Fitz two weeks ago where he finished solo ninth in Phoenix and is coming off another solid performance last week with a T14 so he comes in playing great. He has had limited success at Riviera with a T5 in 2021 but missed the cut in 2023 and 2024 but comes in with much better form this time around. His putter has been awful as he is No. 111 in Putting Average and while that is a concern, he did have his best week last week at Pebble and the rest of his game nears the top of the field. He is No. 3 in GIR Percentage and No. 7 in SG: Tee-To-Green so if his putter even gets just warm, he will be in contention.

Maverick McNealy
Odds: Win 4,100 ~ Top Five 620 ~ Top Ten 280
Payout: Win 2,050.00 ~ Top Five 155.00 ~ Top Ten 70.00

McNealy has been our guy the last two weeks and if he had shown up on Sunday in either, he would have been well inside the top ten and possibly even better. He finished second at the Genesis last year but that was at Torrey Pines South so we count that as a correlating event but he had a T7 here in 2022. He is ranked No. 18 in the Data Golf Performance Table in Raw Strokes Gained and is one of only nine players in the top 18 that are plus in all five SG categories. He is ranked No. 10 in all five categories so his consistency is a huge asset. His strengths have been Approach and Tee-To-Green and he knows these greens to up his putting.  

Shane Lowry
Odds: Win 7,000 ~ Top Five 950 ~ Top Ten 405
Payout: Win 3,500.00 ~ Top Five 237.50 ~ Top Ten 101.25

Lowry made his U.S. debut last week at Pebble Beach and finished T8. He had a great fall on the DP World Tour with a pair of top threes and he has been extremely consistent going back a full calendar year. However, he is ranked just No. 29 in the OWGR largely due to not having won much as his only solo win on U.S. soil was the 2015 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational (he won with Rory at the 2024 Zurich). This is a great course fit and while his best most recent finish is a T14 in 2023, he has not played it much. His correlating finishes are a T2 last year at Quail Hollow and a second and T4 in 2022 and 2023 at PGA National. Amazing value here.

Results through The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am (2 Tournaments):

Win: -4,000.00
Top Five: +2,325.00
Top Ten: +1,837.50

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