Ahead of the Genesis Invitational, the Los Angeles area around Riviera Country Club had been pummeled by rain. When more rain arrived during Thursday’s opening round, Riviera’s putting surfaces turned so soft Collin Morikawa said he’d “never seen greens like this.”
He wasn’t the only star flummoxed by Riviera’s soaked greens on Thursday. World No. 2 Rory McIlroy detailed his confusion over the “soft” but “fast” green conditions, while Adam Scott was robbed of a hole-in-one after his tee shot embedded next to the cup.
Here’s what you need to know.
Collin Morikawa on Riviera: ‘I’ve never seen greens like this’
Morikawa is currently on a roll. He captured his first victory since 2023 with a clutch performance at last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Then on Thursday, the two-time major champion opened with a solid three-under 68 at the Genesis Invitational.
But you’d never know Morikawa was tied for fifth based on his comments about his round Thursday evening. Riviera’s extremely soft greens left Morikawa sounding confused.
“I honestly don’t know how they got it to this. Like I’ve never seen greens like this,” Morikawa began during his post-round interview.
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He continued by explaining how the super-soft conditions allowed him to attack greens from unenviable lies and distances, where he’d normally be worried about holding the putting surface.
“I mean, you could stop any club from anyplace on, you know, from the rough, flyer lies. Like, I mean, I think I had two or three shots today, flyers out of the first cut and rough and like I’m not worried about missing the green at all,” he explained. “It’s just purely hit and hope.”
Counterintuitively, some greens were still playing fast despite being extremely soggy and soft. Morikawa saw this reality in action when he witnessed McIlroy land his approach on 18 near the hole, only to watch it spin back 30 feet off the front edge of the green.
“And then, I mean, you saw Rory’s shot on 18, like it’s just unfair’s not the right word,” Morikawa explained. “You just have to really take those 30-footers and go out and make some birdies somewhere else.”
Rory McIlroy explains ‘difficult’ challenge of greens at Genesis Invitational
After his own opening round at the Genesis was complete, McIlroy also spoke to the media, and he was asked about Morikawa’s comments concerning the condition of Riviera’s greens.
McIlroy echoed Morikawa’s thoughts, arguing that navigating Riviera’s greens on Thursday was unusually difficult because they were somehow “soft” and “fast” at the same time.
“Yeah, it’s like they’re soft but they’re fast, I think that’s the hard thing. It’s like last week at Pebble they were soft, but they were slow because they’re worried about the wind,” McIlroy explained. “Here, they’re so fast.”
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He continued: “The ball, like it just starts to get away from you a little bit, especially if it spins back. It’s just taking more club and taking spin off it. I’m hitting a lot of just little chippy 7-irons and 8-irons.”
He also added his own thoughts about his surprising approach shot on 18.
“And even that 9-iron at the last I hit, it was 186, I hit a full-blooded 9-iron thinking that, you know, 25 miles an hour downwind, it’s not going to come back too much and, you know, it came back 30 feet,” he said.
The steep nature of Riviera’s heralded greens added to the challenge.
“I think it’s a combination of how soft they are, but also how fast they are as well. And a lot of the greens here are pitched quite severely from back to front, so it’s difficult.”
Despite the confusion, McIlroy’s scorecard didn’t seem to suffer from the trying conditions. Rory made six birdies and one bogey on Thursday to shoot a 66 and get within one shot of the lead.
Adam Scott robbed of hole-in-one when ball embeds in Riviera green
If there were one shot that perfectly exemplified just how strange Riviera’s greens were playing in Round 1, it wasn’t McIlroy’s approach on 18. Instead, it was the bizarre performance of Adam Scott’s tee shot on the par-3 16th.
Arriving at the 165-yard par-3 at one under, Scott hit a nearly perfect iron shot from the tee. After impact, the shot tracer showed Scott’s ball flying directly toward the pin, and it was on point. Scott’s ball came crashing down 7 inches in front of the cup.
But instead of bounding and rolling into the hole, Scott’s ball embedded into the soggy 16th green right where it landed. Check out the shot below.
With that, a would-be hole-in-one turned into a tap-in birdie-2, and Scott was left shaking his head, as Morikawa and McIlroy had done earlier.
