– The third Signature Event of the PGA Tour season, the Genesis Invitational, kicks off this Thursday, taking place at the South course of Torrey Pines instead of the legendary Riviera Country Club, its usual venue, due to the devastating fires that swept through Los Angeles.
– 46 of the current top 50 players in the world rankings are present. Only Xander Schauffele, who is still recovering from a back injury, and three LIV Golf players, Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton, and Jon Rahm, are absent. Schauffele could lose the World Number 2 spot this week to Rory McIlroy, who is the main favourite to win following his performance at Pebble Beach. Rory, incidentally, has never managed to start the season with two consecutive victories in his career.
– Besides the Northern Irishman, it almost goes without saying that one of the main points of interest, if not the main one, is to see how World Number One Scottie Scheffler performs after last Sunday’s minor setback in Phoenix, where he dropped to 25th place. Scheffler’s records at the South course are not particularly impressive to date, let’s say it’s not one of his favourite courses, unless proven otherwise.
– Players are going to encounter something akin to hell at Torrey Pines. This is because morning rain is expected on Thursday, with wind gusts that could exceed forty kilometres per hour and an unpleasant wind chill that might not even reach ten degrees Celsius at times. All this on a course, this South course, which is already very long (around 7,100 metres in length) and will become even longer, with the fairways so heavy with water. The test will be extremely tough for the players, who will also face a long rough (about nine centimetres), dense and heavy with water. Tremendous. It’s essential to stay on the fairway.
– It is therefore crucial not to slip up on Thursday. No one is going to win the tournament on the first day, but there will certainly be more than one who will already be out of contention for victory, especially because in this Signature Event there is indeed a cut (the top fifty and ties from a total field of 72 players advance). Fortunately, in Tiger’s tournament, just like with the Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial, the cut is maintained, as one would expect with these three figures.
