PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Jon Rahm and Max Homa, the only two players to win twice this season on the PGA Tour, went low on Thursday at Riviera Country Club in their pursuit of becoming the first three-time winner this season.
Homa, who won here in 2021, made eight birdies, including holing a bunker shot at 10, and signed for a 7-under 64 to share the first-round lead with Keith Mitchell when play was suspended due to darkness at the Genesis Invitational. Rahm, who already owned the best career scoring average at Riviera, lowered it to 69.11 by posting a 6-under 65 to stay hot on their heels.
“It just felt like every aspect of my game felt good, good enough to shoot under par,” Homa said.
Homa’s day began with a bang. Starting on the 302-yard 10th hole, his flop shot to the green from 63 feet left of the hole failed to clear the bunker fronting the green and a potential big number loomed. That is until Homa rescued himself from any predicament by holing out for birdie. Then he was off and running, posting his lowest score in 21 rounds in this event and marks his 12th consecutive round at par or better in the event.
“That was probably the coolest way I’ve ever started a round,” Homa said. “I thought I collected myself. I knew I hadn’t done a whole lot wrong so trusted my bunker game. I hit a very good bunker shot, I will say, but that was a nice boost.
“It felt like it was going to be one of those ‘hang on days’ and to start with the circle on the scorecard, it just eases you as you start a tournament,” he said.
Homa made his lone bogey at 15 but bounced back with a birdie one hole later and saved his best for last on his final three holes, Nos. 7-9. Homa, who already has won twice in California this season at the Fortinet Championship in Napa and the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego, hit all three fairways to set up short irons approaches and converted them all into birdies.
“My irons felt so good today it felt like then it was just kind of turn your brain off and hit the thing,” he said.
Rahm lowers his scoring average at Riviera
Jon Rahm matched Homa’s heroics at 10 with a birdie of his own, but did so by driving the green and taking two putts from 56 feet. He, too, carded eight birdies but made one more bogey than Homa – at Nos. 15 and 2.
Rahm, who won in consecutive starts to the start the year at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii and the American Express in Palm Springs, California, remains red hot. He has recorded five consecutive top-10s and shows no signs of slowing down. He carded his seventh round of 65 or better in 21 rounds played this season.
“I think a lot of players have enjoyed three, four months of really good golf, I think extending that for a very long time like Tiger was able to do and many other great players have been able to do is the more difficult thing,” Rahm said. “Hopefully I can keep it going. I think it feels really hard getting to the top, but I think once you get there, staying for a long period of time is harder.”
Rahm said the cold, windy weather during Wednesday’s pro-am left players discussing whether anybody would have been able to break par had the tournament started in such conditions.
“When Justin Thomas was asking you that question, you know the course was playing pretty freaking difficult,” Rahm said. “When I came out this morning with no wind, it was like, oh, this should be a little bit easier.”
Three birdies at 18 from Tiger, JT and Rory cap an impressive return for The Big Cat
Did you see Tiger’s smile after he made his 8-foot birdie putt at the last? It was the smile of satisfaction, of a hard day’s work being capped off in style as he made his third birdie putt in a row. It was a smile that said, I’ve still got it and all that hard work just to be here was worth it.
“I didn’t want to be the idiot host to miss it right in front of everybody after I just went birdie-birdie,” Woods said after shooting 2-under 69.
What a finish to see Justin Thomas hole one from the fringe and then Tiger do his thing before Rory made it a perfect three for three on one of the great finishing holes in golf.
“That wasn’t pleasant,” McIlroy said of the pressure to make his 6-foot birdie putt. “He holed the one on 17 before me as well and I’m like, not again. Yeah, I certainly didn’t want to be the only one not to make a birdie on 18, so that was a nice putt to hole.”
Woods was playing in his first official event since the British Open in July. He made a mess at the short par-4 10th hole, his chip rolling off the green and into the back bunker. But he salvaged a bogey and dropped another shot at 12 to drop to 1 over.
“Even though I had a little mishap at 10, I was able to fight back and get it going,” he said. “I was chastising myself pretty hard coming off of 12 saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to really get this thing going.’ I don’t know how we’re going to do it after hitting a bad tee shot on 13, but let’s just somehow figure it out and figure out how to piece together something around even par, 1 under par and just happened to get three in a row coming in.”
Woods hit only six of 14 fairways but hit several drives past Thomas and McIlroy, which didn’t sit well with the world No. 2.
“I’m going to go work on the range. I put my driver up a click in loft at the start of the week, I might have to turn it back down again,” he said. “I don’t like him hitting it by me.”
Tiger will have a quick turnaround with a 7:24 a.m. tee time on Friday, and a long night of icing his ankle and leg ahead of him.
“We were laughing, joking in the scoring tent here, Rory’s going to go down and hit some drivers, I said I’ll be right there right behind,” Woods said. “Yes, I need to go and we can do some treatment and get this thing ready for tomorrow.”
That’s the same reaction everyone who has played with him over the last 30 years has had.
— Trevor Immelman (@TrevorImmelman) February 17, 2023
Mitchell ‘solid,’ short game saves strokes
Keith Mitchell holed a bunker shot at 14 for birdie and nailed a short iron from 144 yards inside 3 feet to complete a round of 7-under 64 and a share of the first-round lead when play was suspended on Thursday.
Mitchell, who shot his lowest round of the season, said he played solid but any time he hit “a squirrelly” shot, he managed to recover thanks to a short game he says is vastly improved over the past year.
“To match it up with my driving and ball-striking is something I’ve been working on for my whole life really and I feel like recently it started to click a little bit more,” he said.
Mitchell credits short-game guru Parker McLachlin for helping him improve his technique.
“He just kind of taught me a few things that I didn’t really understand,” Mitchell said. “From there I’ve just kind of been able to take it and just understand my feels versus kind of the physics of how chipping works. He taught me that really more than anything.”
Kuchar’s ‘little training buddy at home’ pays dividends
Matt Kuchar rebounded from a dismal season 2020-21 season in which he barely made the FedEx Cup (No. 122) with three top-10s last season and finished 66th. Now he feels as though he’s ready to return to the winner’s circle and opened with 5-under 66 at the Genesis Invitational.
“I felt as good as I felt in a long time,” he said. “I felt like I understood what I was trying to do with my golf swing, understood what I was trying to do with the golf ball as well as I had that kind of understanding and grasp of my swing and what I was really trying to do with it.”
Kuchar, 44, is also excited about how oldest son Cameron is following in his footsteps and played in a pre-qualifier for next week’s Honda Classic on Thursday.
“I’ve got to go check on him, see how he’s doing,” Kuchar said. “I’m excited for him. He’s turned into my little training buddy at home. Doing great, playing really good golf, has all sorts of potential, seen him shoot really low scores. But at 15, also seen him shoot high scores, too, so don’t know exactly what you’re going get out of a 15-year-old.”
