At last year’s Genesis Invitational, it wasn’t just hard to find the green at Rivieria’s par-3 4th in regulation, it was darn near impossible for even some of the best players in the world.
On the hole which measured 236 yards on the scorecard, just 37 of 241 tee shots — 15.35 percent — for the week found the putting surface.
And it may only get harder next year.
Revealed in a tweet by golf podcaster and writer Andy Lack and later confirmed to GOLF by the PGA Tour, Riviera has built a brand back tee to par-3. The new scorecard yardage? A beefy 265 yards.
According to Genesis Invitational Chief Referee Steve Rintoul, the new tee at No. 4 “has been talked about for many years.” In addition to adding about 30 yards to the scorecard yardage, the tee has also been moved to the right, into the hillside at the edge of the property. Rintoul also added that the PGA Tour’s design team, agronomy staff and rules staff have been in “lock step” with the club as they have altered the course.
“Its location up into the hillside, and strong right to left movement of the area short of the green allows the hole to be played more like a ‘redan,'” Rintoul said over email to GOLF. “It offers a variety of tee yardages to set the hole up ranging from 210 to 265.”
Rintoul continued, affirming that weather ultimately determines course setup, especially considering the traditional spot on the calendar for the Genesis in February, which is usually the wettest and coldest month in Los Angeles.
This past February, No. 4 played around the scorecard yardage for the entire week, anywhere between 230 and 245 yards.
“I suspect the players in The Genesis Invitational Signature Event will see a bit of everything over the 4 days,” Rintoul said. “However, the summertime events coming up at Riviera (Women’s US Open, Olympics and the US Open) will allow for firmer and warmer conditions where the ball played along the ground, chasing onto the green, will be more effective.
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“As always we will evaluate the playability of the hole and gather player input on the design, but our usual strategy is to tip-toe into using major changes. The 265-yard tee is unlikely to be used all 4 days. We will shake up the set-up length, based on the weather as required.”
Part of the difficulty in finding the green at No. 4 owes to its “Redan” template design. The design calls for either a right-to-left shaped shot to land short right of the green and take the severe right-to-left slope of the green complex to roll onto the putting surface or a high left-to-right shape that tries to use the slope to stop the ball. But the issue with the first option is that the grass around the green is sticky Kikuyu grass, which means shots hit high, short and right don’t always release. But shots that landed on the green still rolled over.
Given the dismal green in regulation numbers this past February— just six players found the green during the final round — the hole was panned by PGA Tour pro Adam Schenk, calling it “terrible.”
“Who says you have to use the same FW grass around all the greens?” Schenk tweeted after missing the cut. “Normally, I would say could be to [sic] hard for maintenance & cost too much…but it’s Riv that that excuse is out.”
The hole played as the third hardest hole for the week at .204 shots over par, but that isn’t among the top 10 hardest par-3s on the PGA Tour this season. It ranks as the 18th hardest par-3 on Tour, the same position it held in 2023. There were no double bogeys or worse in 2024 and 32 of the 45 players who missed the green Sunday got up and down.
On the flip side, the hole produced just 11 birdies in 2024, the second-fewest on the PGA Tour among courses that hosted four rounds of an event.
In his email to GOLF, Rintoul did not mention any changes to the grasses around the green, but we’ll have to wait and see next February at the 2025 Genesis for PGA Tour pros’ reaction to the new tee.
Viktor Hovland’s 15th tee shortcut cut off
Rintoul also confirmed two other changes the club made during what he called a “renovation.”
The 18th tee was moved back about 15 yards and to the left, basically on top of where the old 4th tee was. This has extended the scorecard yardage from 476 yards to 490 and will also make the tee shot straighter into the left-to-right sloping fairway.
But more intriguing was a change made around the 15th tee.
“The ‘gap’ to play down hole 17 during the play of 15 has been filled with three mature sycamore trees,” Rintoul said.
That gap was used by a few players at the 2022 Genesis to take an alternative route to the 15th green by playing down the 17th fairway, most notably Viktor Hovland.
In 2023, short of making the 17th fairway internal out-of-bounds, as was done during this season’s Tour Championship on East Lake’s 18th hole, the PGA Tour placed a large scoreboard to the right of the 15th tee to deter players from taking the route. Hovland (and two other players) didn’t care and images of Hovland aiming directly over the scoreboard went viral. In total, players only played into the fairway four times that year.
This past season, however, no player hit a ball into 17 fairway and none will for the foreseeable future with the new trees seemingly blocking any chance.
