Before the Genesis Invitational, the Los Angeles area near the Riviera Country Club was hit by rain. When heavy rain arrived in Thursday’s opening round, Riviera’s putting green turned out to be so soft that Collin Morikawa said he had “never seen greens like this.”
He wasn’t the only star to be hurt by Riviera’s greens on Thursday. World No. 2 Rory McIlroy detailed his frustration with the “soft” but “quick” green conditions, while Adam Scott was denied a hole-in-one after his tee shot embedded near the cup.
Here’s what you need to know.
Collin Morikawa on the Riviera: ‘I’ve never seen green like this’
Morikawa is currently being written. He earned his first win since 2023 with a clutch performance at last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. On Thursday, the two-time champion opened with a solid three-under 68 at the Genesis Invitational.
But you wouldn’t know Morikawa was in for a fifth term based on his comments about his Thursday night round. Riviera’s very soft greens left Morikawa feeling confused.
“Honestly, I don’t know how they got to this point. As I’ve never seen vegetation like this,” Morikawa began while talking.
He went on to explain how the very soft conditions allowed him to attack greens from unimpeded lies and distances, where he often worried about holding a putt.
“I mean, you can set up any club from any spot, you know, from the lies, the false flyers. Like, I mean, I think I got two or three shots today, the flyers came off the first scale and bad and like I’m not worried about missing the green,” he explained. “It’s just a matter of hope.”
Conversely, some vegetables still played quickly despite being very wet and soft. Morikawa saw this happen when he saw Rory McIlroy putt his approach on 18 near the hole, only to watch it roll 30 feet from the front edge of the green.
“And then, I mean, you saw Rory’s shooting when he was 18, like it’s not right, it’s not the right word,” Morikawa explained. “You have to take those 30 feet and go out and make birdies somewhere else.”
Rory McIlroy describes the ‘difficult’ challenge of the greens at the Genesis Invitational
After his opening round at Genesis, McIlroy spoke to the media again, and was asked about Morikawa’s comments about the condition of the Riviera greens.
McIlroy echoed Morikawa’s thoughts, saying that swinging through the Riviera greens on Thursday was unusually difficult because they were somehow “soft” and “quick” at the same time.
“Yes, it’s like they’re soft but they’re fast, I think that’s a difficult thing, like last week at Pebble they were soft, but they were slow because they were bothered by the wind,” explained McIlroy. “Here, they are very fast.”
He continued: “The ball, like, it starts to come off you a little bit, especially when it turns. It just takes a lot of club and takes it out. I’m hitting chippy 7-irons and 8-irons.”
He also added his thoughts on his surprising way of shooting at 18.
“And even that last 9-iron I hit, it was 186, I hit a full-blooded 9-iron thinking, you know, 25 miles an hour downwind, you’re not going to come back much and, you know, come back 30 feet,” he said.
The steep nature of the Riviera’s fairways added to the challenge.
“I think it’s a combination of how soft they are, but also how fast they are. And a lot of the greens here are set hard from back to front, so it’s tough.”
Despite the confusion, McIlroy’s card did not appear to face trying conditions. Rory made six birdies and one bogey on Thursday to shoot 66 and take one shot of the lead.
Adam Scott bogeys a hole-in-one when the ball sinks onto the Riviera green
If there was one shot that epitomized how the Riviera greens played in Round 1, it wasn’t McIlroy’s approach on 18. Instead, it was a strange performance off the tee by Adam Scott on the 3rd 16th.
Reaching the 165-yard par-3 on one under, Scott hit a perfect iron shot off the tee. After the impact, the shot trace showed Scott’s ball flying straight for the pin, and it was straight. Scott’s ball landed 7 inches in front of the cup.
But instead of hooking and rolling into the hole, Scott’s ball landed on the 16th green right where it landed. Look at the picture below.
With that, the would-be hole-in-one turned into a 2-birdie, and Scott was left shaking his head, as Morikawa and McIlroy had done earlier.
;)
