Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Genesis Invitational preview and best bets
Tiger Woods makes his return to action in the Genesis Invitational, where his protege Justin Thomas might just be the one they all have to beat.
Golf betting tips: Genesis Invitational
3pts win Justin Thomas at 16/1 (General)
2.5pts e.w. Collin Morikawa at 22/1 (William Hill, bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Jordan Spieth at 35/1 (William Hill, bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Adam Scott at 60/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Wyndham Clark at 90/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
0.5pt e.w. Luke List at 250/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
As Scottie Scheffler won his fifth PGA Tour title, one year after he'd captured his first, it struck me that we can expect a bit too much of the best golfers in the world. Scheffler had spent quite a long time facing questions about his dip in form, despite remaining one of the top 0.01% of ball-strikers in the sport. For a while, he just didn't quite putt well enough. It happens.
Jon Rahm has now been a short price in-running for his last two PGA Tour events and won neither. Panic! Rory McIlroy didn't get going on his second Scottsdale start. Neither did Patrick Cantlay and where the latter is concerned, we're close to an official funk given that he's gone three starts now without a top-10 finish. Don't even get me started on Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa. Class of 19 is on its way to Dross of 23 if this carries on.
Analysis, focusing on the minutiae, asking questions of the elite is of course part of sport. We don't always agree on what's appropriate, either in terms of question or conclusion, and the golfers at the top of the tree know the game. Surely though we can all unite on one thing this week – let's not expect too much, in fact let's not expect much at all, from Tiger Woods.
Woods confirmed on Friday – giddily via a seemingly personal tweet, which in itself is revealing – that he would return to the PGA Tour for the first time since the Open Championship, here in an event he helps to host, and one which is part of the reason why his very participation in any golf tournament is cause for celebration these days.
When he withdrew from his intended comeback at the Hero Challenge in December, many believed it would be Augusta or nothing in terms of when we see him during the early months of 2023. It's a great sign that he feels able to compete at Riviera, a course at which he's seldom been at his most effective, and Woods being Woods he will do so not even having contemplated the idea of asking for a golf cart to help him get around.
At 125/1, Woods is underpriced rather than over, but he'll still have his backers because people like to believe. And why shouldn't they? His ability to harness that powerful emotion is part of what has made Woods the greatest golfer of his generation and arguably (inarguably, I would say) the greatest of all time. Try to remember that if and when you think they're talking about him a little too much on the telly.
The Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club didn't need another storyline to be the highlight of the early months of the season, and it didn't need its status elevating, either. The best players in golf want to play, because the course is a classic, the tournament is historic, and success here means something. What a pity there is no defending champion to underline that point.
What we do have is a field similar to last week, with Woods, Will Zalatoris, Justin Rose and one or two others thrown in. And we have a different kind of vibe: the raucousness of Scottsdale will be replaced by the sheer coolness of Riviera, and this is a purist's PGA Tour event.
It's often won by a big-hitter these days, though not exclusively, and the key to victory will probably be quality approach play and a good week with the putter. That's a simplified version, though: the test here is so often about hitting good second shots to sensible spots from the rough and while it's not as thick as at Torrey Pines, these small, tilted greens make course management and patience really important.
Of course, those power-fade drivers like Dustin Johnson and JB Holmes have done so well here and it helps that both back-nine par-fives are hard to reach if you are a shorter hitter, but there simply aren't any elite golfers who are too short off the tee to compete here.
As for courses which compare, Riviera has so often been a good Augusta pointer, both of them classical, winding courses which demand all kinds of shots but not necessarily that many from inside 150 yards. I also like TPC River Highlands, which is again traditional and turning albeit shorter, and throws up comparisons not just through Bubba Watson and Paul Casey but the likes of Aaron Baddeley and Freddy Jacobson, too. Copperhead, home of the Valspar, also works through Casey, Jason Kokrak, Sam Burns and more.
These avenues lend weight to the idea that JORDAN SPIETH should love the challenge and that he does, calling Riviera "arguably the best golf course in the world".
A winner at Augusta, River Highlands and Copperhead, as well as here in California at Pebble Beach, Spieth is an old-school shot-maker with magic in his hands and it's no wonder he's taken a shine to some of the most classical courses the PGA Tour has to offer.
Since his return to the elite at around this time two years ago, it's true that his two wins have come in opportunistic fashion, the week before a major and the week after and with some help from others. The thing that is different from seven or eight years ago is that he hasn't beaten an elite field, not since 2017 in fact.
However, he certainly threatened to do so in the Open and the Masters in 2021 and wasn't far away at St Andrews last summer, and it was encouraging to see him hanging around close to the lead in Phoenix last week despite the best efforts of his putter.
Seeing Spieth leave 15-foot putts short is more alarming than those three-foot shoves we've always had to countenance but he made plenty last Friday and seems happy from a technical perspective. At some stage he expects the hole to start looking like a bucket again and, having putted well in Hawaii last month, he may well be proven right.
That's guesswork to a large degree, or at least the timing part is, but what we do know is that he flushed it for large parts of the Phoenix Open. Second only to Scheffler in strokes-gained approach, Spieth produced his best display in that regard since the TOUR Championship. When we next saw him after that field-leading display, he went 5-0-0 in the Presidents Cup.
Riviera then comes along at a good time, and he's played well here even when struggling. In three of Spieth's last four visits, he's been in the mix at halfway, no doubt suffering a Phoenix hangover in 2021. Back in 2014 and 2015, he was right there through three rounds and I like the fact he's generally driven it well here, which would pave the way for his irons to do their thing once more.
Last week's performance came after a stop-start run to begin the year, but for Spieth, who hit all 18 greens in round two for just the second time in his career, it wasn't necessarily out of the blue.
"Yeah, I've been feeling really good ever since I came out here," he said. "I played Pebble on Monday and I finished my final round of that tournament and I flew here and then came out here in the afternoon to get some work in, because my coach was here.
"I really thought we put in a really good hour on that Monday. I got in a really good frame of mind for what I was going to work on this week. It probably felt its best Thursday and yesterday. Today (Saturday) as it got hotter I got a little bit loose and a little out of control at times. But I definitely have seen stuff like that coming. It's not super surprising to piece that second round together.
"It builds a lot of confidence, hitting 18 greens. I mean, I made a bogey off a three-putt. I got four three-putts in three days. I need to eliminate those tomorrow because the ball striking has been there in those rounds."
I also got the sense he's not totally bought into the Phoenix Open, an event he's skipped a few times, and while his record there is good, Riviera might be an even better fit. If he can just find something on the greens I think we'll see him demonstrate that and above all else I was pleasantly surprised to see his odds hold firm, even if there are no secrets in fields this strong.
Morikawa worth another chance
At the top of the market, I missed my chance with Scheffler, which has been a frustrating theme in these early weeks of the PGA Tour year. Then again, he's an Augusta winner with a progressive Riviera record which includes several low rounds already, and I don't think there's a lot between him and favourite Jon Rahm, who is also shorter price than last week but has some long-game niggles to fix.
It seems remarkable that Rory McIlroy and Tony Finau were 20/1 and 50/1 respectively 12 months ago but each now deserves their current prices without appealing all that much. McIlroy's Dubai win wasn't pretty at times and while Finau makes more appeal at a course where he's twice finished runner-up, I have a nagging worry that he will do well to recapture the putting magic which has propelled his rise.
That's less of a worry with COLLIN MORIKAWA, one of the most volatile putters in golf, and he has to be worth another chance following a missed cut in Phoenix.
Teeing off early from the 10th tee, Morikawa just never got going, paying the price for an overly aggressive approach to the 12th and struggling off the tee. He seemed to suffer badly with the cool morning temperatures and was on the back foot after every tee shot.
Having been keen to chance him after an encouraging start to the year it was obviously frustrating, but he hit the ball well enough to suggest his long-game remains in good shape and I'm willing to run the risk of the putter costing us once more. Doing so with Morikawa has generally been a profitable exercise for those brave enough.
Go back through his impressive CV and you'll see that he won the WGC-Workday after a hopeless putting display here at Riviera, just as he won the Open after similar issues in Scotland a week earlier. He won at Muirfield Village after a bad-putting MC at the Travelers, and even his first win followed a bad-putting top-five in the John Deere Classic.
Two of his biggest spike weeks with the putter have come in California and on poa annua greens – here last year and when capturing his first major championship at Harding Park – and this really is a home game for him, having been born and raised in Los Angeles.
"I loved playing Riv in the US Am, I liked it, but last year I actually fell in love and I know why JJ, my caddie, loves this golf course," he said last year. "I keep falling in love with it and it just makes it a little more special being in LA.
"You know, you look at a great golf course and does it test every shot, does it test everything that you need? Absolutely, that's what Riviera does. You hit every shot out here, you hit draws, you hit fades, wedges, long irons, three-woods, everything, and I think that's what makes a great golf course. You're hitting every shot, you're tested on those golf shots, so that's what makes it fun."
Prior to last week he'd finished in the top three of both starts in 2023, having contended at the Hero to end a frustrating, winless 2022, and I really don't mind a chastening weekend off as both an additional motivating factor, and a break from the intensity of back-to-back events of this magnitude.
Where Morikawa is concerned, one lifeless performance has never been something to dwell on and having finished second to Niemann a year ago before a top-five at Augusta, he looks a prime candidate to add his name to the long list of Californians to have triumphed here.
Take the hint with Thomas
Generally speaking, it doesn't usually pay to wait for things to happen – the idea is to try and be ahead of the game – but where JUSTIN THOMAS is concerned, that's not necessarily the case.
Thomas of course relies on his world-class approach play to be at his best and it was an upturn in that department which preceded both his 2017 US PGA win and his victory in the WGC at Firestone a year later.
His irons had been way below the levels we've come to expect when he teed off in Phoenix and for an unsettlingly long time, so when he misfired in round one it seemed he would struggle. But thereafter, Thomas found improvement each and every day, culminating in a field-leading performance on Sunday to fly through the field for third place.
He'll know just as well as anyone else how significant such strides have been to him in the past and he'll really fancy his chances at Riviera, a course he calls 'the best we play all year' and one where, encouraging debut aside, he's finished in the top 10 every time he's putted above-average.
Whether or not he'll do so after an up-and-down display in Phoenix we'll have to see, but while yet to win in California it's worth noting that his poa annua stats actually suggest it's his best surface: he gains 0.3 strokes per round on these greens whereas he's right around Tour average on both bermuda and bentgrass.
We can also take encouragement from the fact that his off-the-tee display last week was his best since Canada last summer, where he mixed it with Finau and McIlroy on that thrilling Sunday, so this looks a great opportunity to banish memories of 2019, when he led entering the final round but played very poorly to finish runner-up to Holmes.
Unlike some players in this field, the prospect of being grouped with Woods is more positive than negative – that was the case over the first two rounds of that 2019 near-miss as it had been when Thomas was ninth in 2018 – and it's clearly a tournament Thomas has on his radar.
With the greatest of respect to Finau and a handful of others, we're talking about someone with majors, WGCs and a PLAYERS on their CV and while he's in from 20/1 last week, the fact Thomas has so often marked our cards makes that a price worth paying.
Burns is in to as short as 28/1 from as big as 50s which feels like a big reaction to a good if unspectacular Phoenix effort, and I do still worry his long-game isn't quite where it should be. Cantlay has similar questions to answer after some equipment changes and so does Hovland, who is seeking his third top-five in a row at a course which once humbled him as an amateur.
It's likely the winner comes from these names towards the head of the market, but it feels worth saying that both Niemann and Max Homa before him were biggish prices despite strong form coming in. Unlike Phoenix, this field hasn't really changed for its designated status and bigger prize fund and Riviera leaderboards so often throw up some surprise names, like Cameron Young last year to some degree.
Sahith Theegala is of interest but will need to hit the ball a lot better, so I'll give the vote to fellow maiden WYNDHAM CLARK at 80/1.
Clark was my main player to watch in 2023, because I felt he'd given clear indications that everything was coming together for him at last. It's taken a while for this former college standout, but he remains with all the tools needed to establish himself as a PGA Tour winner and maybe more.
Breaking his duck here will be a big ask of course but James Hahn managed it at the expense of Johnson and Casey, and neither Homa nor Niemann had recent winning for to call upon, both of them one-time winners before their career-best displays here.
Clark looks primed for one of his own, because his approach play, the main area of weakness for a few years, has really improved lately and has now been strong across each of his last two events. We know his putting comes and goes but he was once considered the benchmark on the PGA Tour in that department, and he's often spoken about how comfortable he is on poa annua having grown up in Colorado.
Last year's best display came in a high-class Canadian Open and in two starts at Riviera he's been 17th and eighth, right in the mix at halfway on each occasion but never arriving with such a deep bank of solid form as he does now.
Playing with Spieth, Schauffele and Finau across the weekend in Phoenix has to be good preparation for this and while he does have questions to answer come Sunday, there's a decent chance he arrives there in the mix.
I toyed with the idea of Justin Rose, who has won back-to-back twice before in his career and whose form has a really strong look to it now. Back in the world's top 50 and with an Augusta invite secured, it wouldn't be a big surprise if he doubled up again and completed the California treble of Torrey Pines, Pebble Beach, and Riviera.
Instead, course specialist and two-time champion ADAM SCOTT gets the vote at anything 50/1 and upwards.
Scott won a 36-hole renewal in 2005, almost defended his title a year later, and has eight more top-20s at Riviera including a win in 2020. He'd led at halfway the previous year and has subsequently added a 65 and two more 66s, one of them culminating in fourth place a year ago.
Scott was 46th in the world back then and returns slightly higher up the rankings and in a weaker field absent of Johnson, Cam Smith, Niemann and a handful of others, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see him drift down the betting after a perfectly decent start to the year, having ended the last one in the mix in Australia.
He's been back home again since having admitted that his absence from Phoenix owed to a schedule mix up, but that freshness could work in his favour and so could the fact that Steve Williams is on the bag. Williams, who played such a key part in Scott's Augusta win, is sharing the role with Greg Hearmon and it's definitely a positive that he's involved this week.
We know Scott comes alive here and that he's all about the biggest events now, just as we also know he's putted better at Riviera than anywhere else during a two-decade PGA Tour career. If his approach play again improves for a return to a course he knows so well then he's a big runner in the marquee event he's most likely to win, and seeing his friend Rose get it done might also help.
One more for the List
Last off a long shortlist was Russell Henley, who shot 78-67 last week. That's eye-catching in itself as he shot 78-66 here in 2014 before going on to win the Honda Classic, and it was notable that his putter caught fire last Friday, along with the rest of his game.
Having generally putted well here and contended for this title once, Henley, whose overall California record has improved markedly over the years, could get back in the mix and underline why comparisons to Augusta, River Highlands and Copperhead make sense, having played well at all three.
The final vote though goes to LUKE LIST, who carries a health warning owing to a balky putter but otherwise has much to like and is overpriced at 250/1.
List was a solid 25th when defending his Torrey Pines title a couple of weeks ago, before missing the cut by a single shot in Phoenix. As you'd expect, he hit the ball really well for the most part, particularly during round two, but made very little.
Prior to all this he'd been 11th in the Tournament of Champions, an excellent debut, before another narrow missed cut in the desert where it's fair to assume he putted quite well at times following a slow start. And while he's still got plenty to prove on the greens, it's certainly true that he's a long way improved from some of the abject displays of 2022.
Also true is the fact that he's historically been better on poa annua, perhaps no surprise given that he was born in Seattle and lived in California for several years, and I think he's a really nice fit for Riviera.
That might not seem the case with a glance at his record, but List contended here when falling to 20th on his debut and has three other top-30s. All of his three missed cuts have been by narrow margins, and he sits inside the top 20 in scoring and adjusted scoring, close to the top 10 if you set a minimum 10 rounds requirement.
Just as his record here is better than it looks, so has been his play this season, helped by definite improvement on the greens. Here's a player capable of winning an event like this with just an average putting week if his long-game fires like it did last Friday, so at a huge price he's hard to resist.
Posted at 1120 GMT on 14/02/23
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