Pacific Palisades, Calif, US, Feb 16: Anirban Lahiri returns to the Riviera for the first time since 2019 as he seeks to regain his form when he tees up at the prestigious Genesis Invitational hosted by Tiger Woods.
Lahiri, who has had mixed results at the storied tournament will look to improve on his best here which was T-26 in 2018. He made the cut in 2017, but missed it in 2019. He did not play in either 2020 or 2021 at the same event. Lahiri’s best round here har been 67 in 2018.
It has been a mixed season for Lahiri, who after a disappointing Fall season, has made three starts in 2022 and made the cut in two. There have been rounds, where he has shown his ‘A’ game, but has also made errors as he shakes off the rust. Lahiri’s last worldwide win came at the 2015 Hero Indian Open after which he has been on the PGA Tour.
The field includes Sahith Theegala, who last week ended third, after leading at the end of each day at Waste Management Phoenix Open.
The Genesis is one of three PGA TOUR events with elevated status, along with the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday and the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Those three events offer a larger purse of $12 million which is a big jump from $9.3 million in 2021. It also has more FedExCup points at 550 to the winner and a three-year PGA TOUR exemption for the winner.
The Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club this year will feature all 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking. It is the first time since last year’s TOUR Championship that all Top-10 in the OWGR will tee up at the same event.
In both 2017 and 2020, the Genesis Invitational had nine of that week’s top 10. It is a rare case for a PGA Tour event that is neither a Major or a FedExCup Playoffs event, World Golf Championships event, or THE PLAYERS Championship.
The last time any TOUR event had all Top-10 was the 2007 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club.
, the last time 10 of the top 10 played in a tournament that wasn’t a major, Playoffs event, WGC, or THE PLAYERS. Tiger Woods would earn his 57th official TOUR title that week, which happened to be the week before THE PLAYERS. The Wells Fargo was the second victory in what would turn out to be a seven-win season for Woods.
The Riviera has some of the most difficult greens on the TOUR and often requires a lot of crucial par saves.
Amidst all this, World No.1 Jon Rahm comes with superb records of 33 successive rounds of par or better and that goes back to the first round of the 2021 Open Championship, where he tied for third place. The record for most successive rounds par or better is 52 by Tiger Woods starting in 2000 AT&T Byron Nelson running to the Phoenix Open in February of 2021. Woods had six TOUR wins, including three majors, in that amazing stretch.
Collin Morikawa, one of the hottest players on the Tour grew up 30 miles from The Riviera but has only now started loving the course, where he has not much success. He will be looking to change that as he is one of the favourites.
