In his home state, Patrick Cantlay will take a two-shot lead into the final round of the Genesis Invitational. He shot a steady third round of one-under par 70 which kept him in the lead throughout Saturday. But he started the day five shots ahead, so the chasing pack have cut into his advantage, particularly when Cantlay dropped a shot on the par-5 17th with some clumsy play. "I didn't make as many putts today," Cantlay said, "but I played a solid round of golf other than maybe 17. But I'm in a good spot going into tomorrow."
Cantlay, who is aiming for his ninth PGA Tour win, will be joined in the final pairing on Sunday by his good friend Xander Schauffele, one of four men who shot 65 on Saturday. Schauffele is tied in second with another of those who made 65, Will Zalatoris.
Harris English opened with three birdies in his 65 and is tied in 5th with Jason Day, a shot behind Luke List. Day rescued his round by eagling 17 having carded bogeys on 15 and 16.
Genesis Invitational Leaderboard
- -14 Patrick Cantlay
- -12 Xander Schauffele, Will Zalatoris
- -11 Luke List
- -10 Harris English, Jason Day
- -8 JT Poston, Hideki Matsuyama, Corey Conners
How to watch the Genesis Invitational
US: ET 4.00pm-8.00pm (Golf Channel/Peacock)
UK: GMT 3.30pm-1.00am (Sky Sports Golf)
Genesis Invitational Quick Links
- Genesis Invitational Prize Money Payout
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- What Is The Riviera Country Club Course Record?
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Welcome to Golf Monthly's coverage of the third day's play at the Genesis Invitational, where we are set to see if anyone can put begin to melt 'Patty Ice' at the top of the leaderboard and whether some big names such as Rory McIlroy can make a run towards the top-10 and beyond.
Stay tuned to keep up to date with all the key shots and must-see action. And thank you for joining us!
Still a lot of golf to be played
Patrick Cantlay went into the weekend leading by five shots. Over the past 20 years on the PGA Tour those who have lead by five shots through two rounds go on to win 72% of the time. Or to put it another way, 28% of the time they do not.
Cantlay is off in just over half an hour. He is playing with Luke List.
English up early
Birdies on the first three holes have taken Harris English to -7 and tied fifth spot on the leaderboard.
What are the portents as to who may win?
So if Cantlay does not win, then who might? Well, the last eight winners of the Genesis Invitational have been inside the top six at the halfway stage. The top six this year after 36 holes were:
1st Patrick Cantlay (-13)
2nd= Jason Day, Luke List, Mackenzie Hughes (-8),
5th Corey Conners (-7)
6th= Xander Schauffele, Will Zalatoris and Tom Hoge (-6).
Xander Schauffele joins those in second place
He does so courtesy of a birdie on his opening hole.
No longer an Open
My Sky TV listings calls this event the Genesis Open. It is in fact now the Genesis Invitational, the name having changed after the 2019 event. This is one of several name changes the event has undergone. It started life in 1926 as the Los Angeles Open, which it remained as until 1995 when it became the Nissan Open, Nissan having been the title sponsors since 1989 (but originally their sponsorship merely change the name to the Nissan Los Angeles Open). In 2008 it became the Northern Trust Open, and in 2017 the Genesis Open.
The difference may seem insignificant but an ‘open; and an ‘invitational’ are different types of event, at least in terms of how you get to play in them. An open has a dedicated qualifying process for people to enter to try to get to play in the event; in an invitational places are awarded in the event by invitation. In reality, invitationals also normally have an ersatz qualifying process in that most of the invitations have been pre-determined to go to those who have achieved certain accomplishments.
For the Genesis Invitational there were a series of criteria for those who would get an invitation: the top 50 in last season’s FedExCup standings, the Aon Next 10 (which for this event are those placed 51-60 in the final FedExCup Fall standings) and the Aon Swing 5 (the top points earners not already exempt from the previous four Full-Field events), the leading finisher from the Race to Dubai not otherwise exempt and current-year tournament winners.
So only five of the field have had what one might call a discretionary invite, although termed as exemptions, and one of those went to the tournament host Tiger Woods. The others went to Adam Scott, Gary Woodland, Will Zalatoris and Chase Johnson. Chase Johnson was invited as the Charlie Sifford Award Winner. Since 2009, an exemption has been given to a golfer from a minority background. In 2017, it was named after Charlie Sifford, the first African-American player to compete on the PGA Tour and who won the 1969 Los Angeles Open at Rancho Park.
The previous Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption recipients have been Vincent Johnson (2009), Joshua Wooding (2010), Joseph Bramlett (2011, 2020), Andy Walker (2012), Jeremiah Wooding (2013), Harold Varner III (2014), Carlos Sainz Jr. (2015), J.J. Spaun (2016), Kevin M. Hall (2017), Cameron Champ (2018), Tim O’Neal (2019), Willie Mack III (2021), Aaron Beverly (2022) and Marcus Byrd (2023).
Chase Johnson names Tiger Woods as his hero and some of his life story is the same. Well a tiny bit – he started equally young, Chase’s father, Mel, is said to have put a golf club in his two-year-old son’s hands and the first words Chase are said to have said is “da ball” referencing a golf ball.
Johnson is a fan of the Harry Potter book and is said to listen to them when he practices. Either he cannot practise that much, or he must know the books almost word for word now.
All the exempt players, other than Tiger Woods, made it through to the weekend. Will Zalatoris is currently T6; Adam Scott T9; Gary Woodland T43 and Chase Johnson T50.
No real charge by Rory
Rory McIlroy is two under after 14 holes for today's round, with four birdies and two bogeys. He is T26. He has also just driven his ball past the group ahead on the 15th fairway.
Final pairing trade birdies on the opening hole
So Cantlay retains his five-shot lead. List and Hughes share second place.
Chase Johnson finishes his third round
He is round in 73. His only birdie came on the 18th courtesy of a superb approach shot. He shares last spot with Charley Hoffman and Emiliano Grillo, who have joined him in the clubhouse on +2 for the tournament.
So near, but so far, for Gary Woodland
9 inches away from an ace on the par-3 16th!@GaryWoodland's reaction says it all. pic.twitter.com/84zU3PKb9SFebruary 17, 2024
On familiar territory
Debuting in 1926 at Los Angeles Country Club as the Los Angeles Open, the tournament has been staged at various courses throughout Los Angeles. In all, eleven courses have held the event, five of them doing so only once. But it has been mainly contested around the Riviera Country Club (60 times) and Rancho Park (17 times). Indeed, since 1973 only twice has it not been held at The Riviera Country Club – in 1983, when it returned to Rancho Park; and in 1998 when it was held at Valencia Country Club for the only time.
Cantlay's lead cut to four
He cards his first bogey for 23 holes, on the 3rd hole. List makes par and so is now only four shots adrift of the leader.
That bunker in middle of 6th green...
...is going to be a challenge for Luke List as he has played his tee shot on this par 3 to the wrong side of it. He appears to have the sand trap slap bang on the direct route to the hole now.
Out comes the wedge on the green for List
I don't get bunkers in the middle of greens for this very reason. How does that not damage the putting surfaces with chaps playing wedge shots on them? List half-heartedly pats down his wee divot. He then putts and makes par. Cantlay two putts for his par.
McIlroy in the clubhouse
He was round in a two-under par 69 today, with five birdies. He is T26.
Homa plays pinball
On the 13th he misses the green from 173 yards out, hits the tree alongside the green and the ball rebounds off it and rolls across the green obligingly within a few feet of the hole. Why does that sort of luck not happen to me? Homa's caddie punches the air and walks with his hands aloft in triumph. Homa looks a bit sheepish.
Tiger was back where it all began
This tournament has seen some firsts. Notably, it was, in 1992, where Tiger Woods made his PGA Tour debut, as a 16-year-old amateur. When he would normally have been in a geometry class at Western High School, he was instead teeing it up at Riviera. He remembers: “I teed the ball up and I was totally fine with my practice swings, no big deal. I get over the golf ball, no big deal. Look down the fairway, like ho hum, it's an easy tee shot from No. 1 at Riv.
“I take it back and the club felt like it weighed like eight tons. I didn't know if I could get it to the top of my swing. … I’d never felt the club get that heavy. I was nervous, like I always am before an event, but I had never felt so awkward going back.”
He made birdie on that first hole. His sole birdie of the round. He missed the cut by six shots after shooting 72-75. “It was a life-changing moment for me,” Woods says now. "It was a learning experience: I learned I wasn't that good, that I had a long way to go. I was not competitive at this level. I was at the junior level, but not at the pro level. These guys are so much better. I didn't think I was ready for it then, and it showed me that I was not."
But the week altered his life in other ways, as he reflects: "It changed a lot. I was known more nationally. When I played junior tournaments and amateur tournaments, more people came out to watch. I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It was just an awareness of this new, young kid coming up, Tiger Woods. It was a very different world post-1992.”
JT Poston completes his round
The first of the leading group of players is in the clubhouse, if that is not overselling the chap in T8. He was round in 66 with his only dropped shot on the 12th. But it is not the best round of the day as Eric Cole was round in 65 and now lies T15.
List has trouble on 10
Having only dropped one shot in 45 holes thus far, he now drops another one at the short par-4 10th. He takes two to get out of a greenside bunker, and when he does, his ball trundles off the other side of the green.
Another historic first at this tournament
In this tournament, in 1938, Babe Zaharias became the first woman to play in a professional golf tournament for men. Although in those days she was still Babe Didrikson for it was at that event that she met her future husband, Theodore Vetoyanis, better known George Zaharias. He was a wrestler, normally cast as the bad guy in the ring, who fought under the moniker “The Crying Greek from Cripple Creek". Eleven months later they were married.
She shot 81 and 84, and missed the cut at that Los Angeles Open, but she also qualified for the Los Angeles Open again in 1946. This time she made the 36-hole cut, with scores of 76–81, to become the first and, to date, only women to make the cut in a regular PGA Tour event. She also made the cut at the Phoenix Open, where she shot 77-72-75-80, finishing 33rd, and at the Tucson Open. She tried to qualify for the US Open, but her application was refused on the grounds that she was a woman.
Cantlay extends lead
A birdie on the par-5 11th gives him a four-shot buffer to the chasing pack.
List's bunker trouble on 10
The 10th hole at Riviera can be treacherous. pic.twitter.com/fVzwTsSwkKFebruary 17, 2024
English in the clubhouse
He misses a birdie putt on the final hole by the narrowest of margins. But he is round in 65, the best score of the day so far. He is four shots off the lead, tied in second.
Xander Schauffele cuts Cantlay's lead to three
Xander Schauffele rolls in a birdie on the par-3 16th, his third birdie on the back nine. He did not have any on the front nine, however he did eagle the first.
But Cantlay then extends his lead back to four
He does so with a birdie on the 13th.
Riviera’s architect
The designer of this course has achieved the strange attributes of being one of the most influential golf course architects, yet be someone most people who follow golf have not heard of. The architect of the Riviera course is George C. Thomas. He was in, the literal sense, an amateur course designer. Coming from a wealthy Philadelphia family, he never accepted money for any of his designs.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1894, Thomas joined the investment firm where his father was a partner, and he worked there until his mid 30s. But he had many other interests to pursue and having to earn a living was not a necessity. He cultivated roses, growing about 1,200 varieties, and wrote two books on roses. He also bred English setters and was a co-founder of the English Setter Club of America.
During World War I he served was a captain in the Army Air Corps, crashing three times but surviving the conflict. By then he had already designed first golf course on the family estate in Philadelphia, doings so when he was still a teenager, and others in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
After the war he settled in Beverly Hills in California and further course designs followed, more than 20 of them, notably his redesign of the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club, with Herbert Fowler. Riviera, however, many see as his crowning achievement.
One of Thomas’ design philosophies was that “When you play a course and remember each hole, it has individuality and change. If your mind cannot recall the exact sequence of the holes, that course lacks the great assets of originality and diversity.”
In 1926, he published Golf Course Architecture in America, “probably the clearest perspective ever written on the art of course design,” according to acclaimed golf architect Tom Doak who adds that “no architect was a deeper thinker than George Thomas.”
Another top architect, Gil Hanse, explains that: “The architect that has had the most influence on our work is George Thomas. Angles, strategy, and the ‘course within a course’ concept were where Thomas excelled. We tried to embrace those traits in our original designs, at the Rio Olympic Course and at Streamsong Black. Thomas really understood those things. That was part of his genius.”
Tiger Woods is another admirer who has also used Thomas’ ideas in his designs, explaining: “At Riviera and L.A., I like how Thomas provided opportunities to have several ways into the greens, especially running the ball into them.”
So why is Thomas so little known by the wider golfing public when compared with some other architects of America’s Golden Age of Golf Architecture? Partly this is because he designed comparatively few courses, some of which no longer survive. Fewer golfers have played, or have come across a Thomas design than the have of, say Donald Ross or Alister Mackenzie one.
Xander Schauffele birdie on 17
That's back-to-back birdies for him and Cantlay's lead is now cut to three again.
Will Zalatoris up into joint second place
He birdies 16 and 17 and is now on -6 for his round.
Xander Schauffele finishes his round
He has carded 65 with no dropped shots, four birdies and an eagle. He is -12 for the tournament.
Zalatoris has a birdie putt on 18
If he makes it, it will be a round of 64. He has five birdies in his past nine holes.
Zalatoris' putt slides past
So that's 65 for him. He is level with Xander Schauffele on -12. Indeed, he played each hole of the inward nine in exactly the same score as Schauffele: birdie, birdie, par, par, par, par, birdie, birdie, par.
We’ll be seeing this course again... and again
As well as having become established as the home of the Genesis Invitational, this course will also host the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2028 Summer Olympics golf competitions.
No Tiger here today
The tournament host was not at the course today, keeping others away from his flu. There must be a doubt as to whether he will be able to present the trophy tomorrow.
Having Tiger Woods withdrawal symptoms? If so, maybe our Tiger Woods quiz would be just what the doctor ordered.
Day makes eagle after back-to-back bogeys
Never a doubt.@JDayGolf bounces back from back-to-back bogeys with an eagle on 17. pic.twitter.com/6JFF7VU1JmFebruary 17, 2024
Cantlay bogeys 17
His approach from 130 yards comes up short of the green. He has a chip onto the green but that comes up well short of the flag. He doesn't make his par putt.
Cantlay is the overnight leader.. again
His approach on 18 came up short of the green. He left himself 58ft to the flag, but chipped to tap-in range and gets par. He is round in one under par and leads by two shots going into Sunday. He lead by five shots coming into today.
