The biggest event of the year and a 47-year-old with one leg who hadn’t played a tournament in seven months and had just one round in the 60’s in the last 800 days obviously stole the show.
Tiger Woods birded his final three holes at Thursday’s Genesis Invitational in the first round to card a 2-under 69 and scratch the headlines of first-round leaders Max Homa and Keith Mitchell (both 7-under) and world champion Jon Rahm, who 6 years old and wants to win for the third time in 2023.
Wood’s finishing kick was almost as remarkable as his speed off the tee, and he reminded us once again why he’s the best man ever to pull it off. We’ll take a closer look at his lap as well as the leaders of the event below.
The leaders
T1 Max Homa, Keith Mitchell (-7)
I asked the question last week: Is Homa the third best player in the world (behind Rory McIlroy and Rahm)? Scottie Scheffler provided an answer (“hell no”) with his fifth win in 53 weeks on Sunday, but Homas 64 raises another question: is Homa the fourth best player in the world?
If you care about victories, the answer is that it could be him. A second Riviera win would be his third of the 2022-23 PGA Tour season and second in his last three starts. There’s still a long way to go, but the caliber of golf he plays – positive shots won on approach in his last eight starts – combined with his history at Riv – three consecutive top-10 finishes – make him a daunting one matter the rest of the way.
Other contenders
3. Jon Rahm (-6)
T4. Harris English, Matt Kuchar, Collin Morikawa, (-5)
T7. Rory McIlroy (-4)
Rahm has now won shots on the field in 34 of his last 36 rounds, and one of the others was one where he was right on the field average. He’s absolutely a problem for everyone involved, and if he somehow wins this week, that would mean he’s lost to nine golfers in five PGA Tour events prior to the swing in Florida.
I’m a little worried about his driving – he was about field average there, only hitting six fairways out of 14 and struggling at times in Phoenix last week – but that’s very picky at this point about how he’s doing everything else. It would be surprising if he wasn’t in the mix late on Sunday.
Incidentally, Rahm’s post-round response to a question about whether he’s scared of losing what he’s got right now – which is why he’s only lost to 19 players in his last nine starts.
“Momentum is a big thing in sport, but if you put in the effort all year long and on the weeks off and at home and do the little things right, you give yourself a better chance of never really feeling that hope,” he said . “Many of us spend a few hours on and off the golf course doing the right things to stay physically and mentally fit to maintain that level of golf.
“I don’t do it for fear, I do it for joy and because I can get questions like this where basically every time I serve I’m fighting to win a tournament. I do it for that. I do it for the love of the game, the love of competing and the love of becoming a better person every day. I never thought that making decisions out of fear was the right way to go, and I haven’t really made many of them in my life that way.”
Tiger Woods, still the GOAT
Phew, we’ve got all the superficial stuff behind us and are now in the Main Event. I said before starting his round that 73 would be a good score for someone who hasn’t played tournament golf in seven months. For example, there is video evidence of how I say this that you can find on CBSSports.com. What a touch! Woods’ speed was better — seven drives of 317 yards or more, nine drives of 177 ball speed or more — and so was his stamina. After a tepid first 15 holes, he closed with vigor.
- Up and down from 166 yards on the par 3 16
- Drive from 322 yards, putt from 24 feet on 17th par-5
- Up and down from 150 yards on the par 4 18
Bang bang bang. A 2-under 69 – his first result of 2-under since the first round of the 2020 Masters, played in November. Woods was asked if he went to Riviera expecting to play well and win.
“That’s the only reason I’m pitching it,” he said. “There will come a point where I can’t do that anymore, but right now I feel like I can still do it if I have the right golf course. The way this golf course was – it’s playing right now, you’re watching Rory and JT and I we all hit these little ones like cheaters that fly and roll the ball out of there. I’d have a little harder time judging Rory or JT , if it was wet and they can bomb it 320, but this golf course is set up so you can kind of scoot it and drive around it and I was able to do that all day today.
Tiger also noted that he has a lot of ice cream in his immediate future. This isn’t meant to be a wet blanket here, but it’s unlikely to continue for Woods. He nearly won two strokes with his putter and was quite unpredictable off the tee, despite hitting it wide. More likely, this round will fit within the current Tiger template, which we’ll be seeing for a while. Some flashes and some valleys. Some from yesterday and some giving a glimpse of what the future holds. That 69 was one of the greatest, but it might be asking too much even for Tiger Woods to do that four days in a row.
2023 Genesis Invitational updated odds and tips
Odds via Caesars Sportsbook
- Jon Rahm: 14/5
- Max Homa: 4-1
- Rory McIlroy: 6-1
- Collin Morikawa: 17/2
- Keith Mitchell: 12-1
- Justin Thomas: 14-1
It’s not often that a top 12 player in the world leads an event after round 1, but isn’t the favorite of that event either. Such is life in the long shadow of Jon Rahm. Two guys we haven’t talked about who were in a different shadow Thursday are Thomas (-3) and McIlroy (-4). McIlroy gained almost five shots down the field from tee to green while Thomas’ short game saved him. Their trio (including Woods) went under 9 in Round 1 on Thursday, and I think McIlroy — considering how well he hit in Round 1 — has a pretty decent number in Round 2.