Genesis Open first-round preview: Sam Saunders among three-ball tips

Recommended bets

1pt Sam Saunders to win his three-ball at 11/4

2pt double Hideki Matsuyama and Tyrrell Hatton at 2.66/1

The weather threatens to play a significant role in the Genesis Open, certainly over the first 36 holes, and that only adds to the belief that Thursday's three-ball coupon has a trappy look to it.

My eye was first drawn to Justin Thomas, who is an 8/5 chance to produce the best score of the marquee group in which he features alongside Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

It's probably not wise to get hung up on how players have fared in each other's company in the past as a broad rule, but where Tiger is concerned there is an obvious angle: the circus he brings with him, the noise it creates, makes for something truly unique.

Thomas has coped admirably, and again there's logic as to why. He's perhaps played more practice rounds with Tiger than anyone else and while the crowds for these are slightly less significant, it has perhaps helped soften the aura of his mentor.

On the six occasions they've been grouped together, either as a duo or part of a three-ball, JT has outscored Tiger each time - averaging 2.67 strokes lower per round - and that speaks to a level of comfort. As he's also developed a level of comfort at Riviera, and arrives close to his very best, that makes for a decent case.

The trouble is the other player in the group. McIlroy's scoring average goes up when he plays with Tiger but not by enough to give cause for alarm, and he's played well this year. He looks determined and a rain-soaked Riviera is a course he'll expect to thrive upon.

Given that McIlroy has been a fast starter under suitable conditions throughout his career, the verdict has to be no bet.

Various other options tempted me to some degree. Even Robert Garrigus, an out-of-form 4/1 chance, made some appeal. He's in with Louis Oosthuizen and his stock health warning plus Brandon Harkins, who played nicely last week despite often getting off to a slow start.

Oosthuizen has struggled at Riviera in two previous visits and as he withdrew from his latest intended start, that just made him look like a vulnerable odds-on favourite. I just didn't want to take him on with either of his playing partners, neither of whom is anywhere close to his league.

Enough of what to swerve - the best bet looks to be Sam Saunders, to small stakes, at around the 11/4 mark.

Saunders - or Arnie's grandson as he's known among commentators - plays with Luke List and Anirban Lahiri, and truth be told both hold a power edge which could be enhanced by soft conditions on the outskirts of LA.

Still, Saunders has played well here on both visits, particularly in round one, with an opening 64 in 2017 enough for the lead and last year's 67 just one shy of first place.

He's also been starting well all season, well enough to rank higher than both List and Lahiri in round one scoring, and while again these aren't facts to lend serious weight to, they combine to make the outsider of three look interesting.

List has started the year very poorly, which is the chief reason for taking him on. Riviera is a good course fit for a player who lives in California but he'll need to do much better if he's to be a factor this week.

As for Lahiri, he became a dad earlier in the week and while very much an advocate of the nappy factor, typically I'd want a week or two more to have passed for the adjustments to take place. It's the very definition of an inexact science and I'd be the first to point to fatherhood should he go well this week, but my instinct is he'll struggle.

With Saunders so solid here in eight previous rounds, close to 3/1 looks a sporting price.

The banker of the day looks to be Hideki Matsuyama, who plays with Martin Kaymer and KJ Choi and is 5/6 in a place. One of my outright selections, the Japanese has been back to form of late and he's in with two players who will struggle to make the weekend.

Yes, Choi was once a course specialist and it's just three years since he finished fifth here, but his one PGA Tour start in 2019, a missed cut in Phoenix, didn't suggest he's about to light up the place again.

Kaymer, like Choi, hits the ball left-to-right and that's been considered advantageous here, but his PGA Tour form remains a concern. There should be no excuses for Matsuyama, who has bettered par here in each of his four opening rounds.

Double him up with Tyrrell Hatton, whose lack of course experience shouldn't matter against two players, Danny Lee and Whee Kim, who have horrible records at the Riv.

Kim has played very poorly all year and his first-round scoring average currently sits the wrong side of 75. His course form reads MC-61-MC and he shot 73-78 last year.

Lee has shown signs of encouragement over the last year, but this place doesn't suit on paper and that much has been confirmed by the scorecard. With zero top-60 finishes in five visits, four of which have ended prematurely, and a scoring average of 73, he doesn't set the bar very high at all for Hatton.

The Englishman arrives here having shaken off a niggling injury which affected his winter practice, and since finishing sixth in last year's US Open he's missed only one cut - a performance which can be excused because of that setback.

Ultimately he's a rock-solid player and that should be all we need here.

State of play

Dustin Johnson has been experimenting with a new putter and even a new putting style over the last two days, but that news either hasn't filtered through to the exchanges or has been written off as insignificant.

It's probably the latter, as Johnson is a known tinkerer, who has tried something new before many of his previous wins. As a backer, it really wouldn't concern me and at 9/1, I remain of the belief that he is firmly the man to beat at a course which suits him down to the ground.

Of the market principals, it's Bryson DeChambeau who has been probably the least popular. By rights, the most prolific player in the sport over the last nine months or so should be vying for favouritism anywhere, but he's fifth in the betting and an easy-to-back 20/1 shot this time.

The assumption is that it's DeChambeau's course form, WD-41, which has turned people away and that makes a degree of sense at a venue whose champions have so often been more obvious. That said, it does need some qualification: he withdrew, when in miserable form, on his 2017 debut; then, last year, he'd played very poorly the week before and would continue in that vein for a little while.

DeChambeau is clearly a different animal now, to the extent that course form becomes almost irrelevant. He arrives having finished inside the top 20 of his last 10 events, four of which he's won, and if that run extends it will further confirm that he's among the key players for the Masters which is now just two months away.

What to expect from Garcia

Sergio Garcia is difficult to weigh up on his return to the PGA Tour, having been disqualified from the event in Saudi Arabia two weeks ago having taken his frustrations out on not one but five separate greens, doing damage enough for several players to lodge complaints.

In a world-class event, where there's broad agreement when it comes to each player's appropriate price, there's little doubt that exchange odds dancing between 55 and 70 mean that there's been an assumption that Garcia's behaviour in the Middle East will result in a dip in his form here.

Why? Because a player who traded a very short price to win this title a couple of years ago, who is ideally suited to Riviera, who has form at correlating courses in TPC River Highlands and Augusta, and who has played really well since making history in the Ryder Cup, would surely be around the 33-40/1 mark had he simply not played in Saudi Arabia.

Immediately it makes Garcia fascinating. That he's apologised properly this week can only help, but if he does feature on the leaderboard and is therefore asked to speak with the media, Saudi Arabia will be top of their list of questions - at least, it ought to be, if those present are doing it right. It's very difficult to work out what effect it could have on the Spaniard.

In terms of a precedent, the 2013 BMW PGA Championship springs to mind. Back then, Garcia had made a classless comment about Tiger Woods, and on the eve of the tournament told the media that he'd considered withdrawing. "I feel like maybe my mind is not in the greatest place at the moment," he confessed, and it was a comment he repeated throughout the week.

Come Sunday, Garcia never having mounted a serious challenge, he spoke of how emotionally draining the experience had been, but that the fans - European, remember - had helped massively. There is, of course, the potential for a rather less sympathetic response this week, both from fans and indeed players. There's nothing worse to a fellow golfer than breaking the code.

My belief is that Garcia will have to play very well to get anywhere close to winning this. He's the sort of player who thrives when he feels loved, and I suspect the backlash to what happened a fortnight ago will set him back for some time. It took him an age last year to recover from an embarrassing Augusta defence and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we have to wait until the Masters and beyond to see him truly move on from this one.

Selections box

My selections: Johnson, Matsuyama, Kokrak, Howell III, Varner III, Ortiz

Dave Tindall: Hadwin, Smith, Vegas, Kang

Steve Rawlings: Mickelson, Garcia, Schwartzel

Steve Bamford: McIlroy, Matsuyama, Scott, Bradley

Niall Lyons: McIlroy, Watson, Scott, Finau, Champ