Our expert likes Collin Morikawa's chances this week.
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Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sport betting. You can follow on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the Genesis Invitational, which gets underway Thursday in La Jolla, Calif. Along with Kannon’s recommended plays, you’ll also see data from Chirp Golf, a mobile app that features both Free-To-Play and Daily Fantasy golf contests where you can win cash and prizes with each round and tournament.
This is normally where we land in the cleanup hitter’s spot in the lineup, closing out the end of a four-week run on the West Coast Swing, and one of my favorite superfectas in all of golf. From Torrey Pines to Pebble Beach, to Phoenix, and then to the one and only Riviera Country Club, it is quite the quadruple play in golf.
The devastating wildfires in Pacific Palisades, Calif., however, where Riviera is located, have forced the 2025 edition of the Genesis Invitational to take place elsewhere and it was announced a few weeks ago that we would head back to Torrey Pines for what is the third Signature Event of the young golf season.
Home to the Farmers Insurance Open, won by Harris English just three weeks ago, it will be the South Course only at Torrey Pines this week rather than the North Course also playing a part for one of the four rounds. Certainly not much will be different with the golf course but reports are that the rough has been allowed to grow out, making what is already a very demanding test off the tee even more difficult.
Some of the participants are repeats this week. Harris English is back, as are Sam Stevens, Andrew Novak, and Sungjae Im, all of whom finished top 5 here in late January. But there are quite a few new faces versus what we saw a few weeks ago too, including Scottie Scheffler and recent winner at Pebble Beach, Rory McIlroy.
The field size has been cut in half this time around: 72 players in all this week, with a 36-hole cut to top 50 and ties, along with anyone within 10 shots of the lead.
The skill sets I am focusing on this week have not changed. They worked for us beautifully in landing on Harris English correctly at 110-1. Total Driving remains a high priority, hitting it both long and straight off the tee. The South Course is the longest course these players face on Tour at nearly 7,800 yards and the landing areas are narrow — and we talked about the very penal rough. Finding fairways is going to be very important. And if you can add some length in there as well, that ought to go a long way toward success this week.
The par 4s here are almost all in the 450-500 yard range. Three of the four par 3s are over 200 yards. I looked at Strokes Gained on par 4s of that length and also Hole Proximity from 200+ yards, as a great deal of approach shots will be struck from that distance. Finally, Scrambling will be another very important ingredient. English led the field in this category three weeks ago, en route to victory. English was third in that field for SG: Putting and I have looked at this as well, on what is a Poa Annua surface.
English had very strong credentials on the correlated courses we used here for the Farmers Insurance Open, and we’ll use the same ones again. Quail Hollow, home to the Wells Fargo Championship, Country Club of Jackson, home to the Sanderson Farms Championship, Vidanta Vallarta, where they play the Mexico Open, and Corales Golf Club, where they play the Corales Puntacana Championship, all make the list. Also: Valhalla, home to last year’s PGA Championship, Caves Valley, where the 2021 BMW Championship was held, and finally TPC Harding Park, home to the 2020 PGA Championship.
I have played the following five selections for an outright win as well as a top-20 finish.
Collin Morikawa (18-1)
Beginning with a third-place finish at the Masters last season, Morikawa has basically been the second-best player in the world ever since. He was second at Kapalua earlier this year and took 17th at Pebble Beach two weeks ago. He’s finished as high as third here for the Farmers and was fourth in 2021 when Torrey Pines hosted the U.S. Open. Morikawa has also finished 16th at Quail Hollow, was fourth at Valhalla in last year’s PGA Championship, and won the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks fifth in this field for Good Drives Gained and ninth in Scrambling. Morikawa is 54th this season in Total Driving. Last year he was 31st. He bangs it out there just under 300 yards on average, which does not rank especially high on Tour, but his Driving Accuracy is top 10 in the world. Having grown up in Southern California and having attended Cal Berkeley, he is very familiar with this golf course as well as Poa Annua greens.
Tommy Fleetwood (47-1)
He’s gotta win on the PGA Tour eventually, doesn’t he? Maybe this is the week. He was 11th on Tour last season in Driving Accuracy and was seventh for Total Driving and Scrambling. Over the last 24 rounds, Fleetwood ranks 12th in this field for SG: Off the Tee and is eighth for SG: Approach. He was 26th at Valhalla and 29th at Harding Park, and finished 50th here at the U.S. Open in 2021. He’s been excellent at Quail Hollow with finishes of 13-5-14, and back in 2015 at Harding Park for the WGC-Cadillac Match Play, he finished fifth. Over the last 36 rounds, Fleetwood ranks 26th in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua).
Maverick McNealy 2024 RSM Classic.Getty Images
Maverick McNealy (52-1)
If we are going to have a Cal Bear on the card, we’d better have a Stanford Cardinal too. Seriously though, like Morikawa, McNealy is another California kid who is very familiar with this course and these Poa Annua greens. He’s never missed a cut at Torrey Pines and has finished as high as 15th. He’s taken 17th at the Sanderson Farms, 13th at Vidanta Vallarta, and was 23rd last May at Valhalla. Over the last 24 rounds, McNealy ranks 12th in this field for SG: Approach, seventh in Scrambling, third on the 450-500 yard par 4s, and is ninth for SG: Putting (Poa Annua) over the last 36 rounds.
Akshay Bhatia (78-1)
This is my first toe-dip into the Bhatia pool this season but what he’s been doing hasn’t gone unnoticed. He really is a serious player, I believe, that is going to win again soon. He won last season and finished top 10 three times, including a runner-up. He was also top 20 an additional eight times, including a 13th-place finish in his debut last year at Torrey Pines. Similar to Morikawa and Fleetwood, he is not a bomber off the tee but is very accurate and ranked 27th on Tour last season in Total Driving. Over the last 24 rounds, Bhatia is fourth in this field for Scrambling, and as yet another California native, he ranks fourth in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua).
Gary Woodland (110-1)
While this is my first trip down Bhatia Street this season, this is my third week of being on Woodland. He’s won at Pebble Beach before (2019 U.S. Open), he won at Phoenix in 2018, and here at Torrey Pines, he has two top-10 finishes and three top-20s. So far this season, he’s finished 16-22-21 and he’s always been one of the very best in the business as far as Total Driving. Over the last 24-rounds, he ranks top-5 in this field for all categories off the tee and he’s also top-5 in SG: Approach. He’s been 16th at the Sanderson Farms, has two top-5 finishes at Quail Hollow and in 2015, Woodland was runner-up to McIlroy at the WGC-Cadillac Match Play at Harding Park. Just keep playing well and maybe get a few putts to drop, and Woodland should be in contention once again.
Who Chirp Golf players are picking this week
Top 3 Chirp Golf player picks for the Genesis Invitational.Chirp
