Riviera Country Club, the legendary venue this week for the Genesis Championship of the PGA Tour, opened its doors exactly 100 years ago under the name Los Angeles Athletic Club Golf Course. Just three years later, it hosted a major tournament for the first time, the fourth edition of the Los Angeles Open, the predecessor of the current Genesis. In that 1929, the winner was the Scotsman MacDonald Smith, one of the most renowned golfers of his time, although he died without winning a Major. It cannot be said that the Riviera curse began there, as many, many major champions have won at the charming Californian course that served as a setting for two Hollywood films. But at least, it was an early hint of another curse that has indeed developed over time…
It has to do with Riviera and the winners of the grand slam career. Considering it has hosted the Los Angeles tournament under its various names 64 times (this year will be the 65th edition, returning after the absence in 2025 due to the fires that ravaged much of California) and three Majors (one US Open and two PGA Championships), it is striking and even relevant that only one of the six winners of the grand slam career, you know, the champions of the four Majors, has been able to win at Riviera.
The most paradigmatic case is Tiger Woods, the player with the most victories in the history of the PGA Tour and today’s host of this tournament. He has played the course 16 times and never won it. He is the player who has teed off the 1st at Riviera the most to compete and has been unable to secure at least one victory. The most, never. Jack Nicklaus, the golfer with the most Majors won in golf history, also failed to break this wall. Nor did Gary Player, the most decorated player in history not born in the United States.
The fourth of the grand slam career winners who never won at Riviera is Gene Sarazen. This leaves us with just two names. The one who did achieve it and the only one who could achieve it this year. The first is Ben Hogan. Not only did he win at Riviera, but it can even be said that it was one of his gardens. He won the Los Angeles tournament there twice (1947 and 1948) and, as if that weren’t enough, he won the only US Open that has been played on those fairways and greens. That was in 1948. In other words, he not only won three times at Riviera but did so twice in the same year.
So far, only Ben Hogan has been able to overcome the grand slam career curse that hangs over Riviera. That is the challenge Rory McIlroy will face from next Thursday when the tournament begins. After all, the Northern Irishman is the only one who can join the exclusive Riviera room where Hogan resides alone. It’s not that McIlroy’s numbers at Riviera are very favourable either. He has played it continuously from 2018 to 2024, and his best results have been a fourth and a fifth place in the two editions before the pandemic. He has gone four consecutive years without finishing in the top 10. It is not something usual by his standards.
Scottie Scheffler has not yet won the grand slam career, but there are few doubts that he will eventually achieve it. This year he will have the first opportunity at the US Open. Whether he achieves it or not, he has also never won at Riviera, so he will surely be eager to remove that thorn and end the curse even before becoming a grand slam career winner.
