This article is part of our Golf One and Done Pool Expert Picks series.
The Genesis Invitational
We are back with another round of one-and-done picks for The Genesis Invitational, which returns to Riviera Country Club after a one-year hiatus. Last season's event was played at Torrey Pines after the destruction caused by the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
Ludvig Aberg is the defending champion, but it was Hideki Matsuyama who claimed victory last time the PGA Tour made the trip to Riviera in 2024. This is the second straight Signature Event, but the field features just 72 players as well as a 36-hole cut. Only the top 50 and ties -- plus any player within 10 shots of the lead after the first two rounds -- will stick around for the weekend.
There wasn't a ton of movement in RotoWire's OAD pool last week, as only three participants went with a golfer who finished top-10 in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. There's a good chance that isn't the case again, as The Genesis Invitational features one of the largest top prizes on the PGA Tour at $4 million. The top four finishers this week will all clear $1 million.
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Course Tidbits
- Course: The Riviera Country Club (7,384 yards, par 71)
- Location: Pacific Palisades, California
- Purse: $20 million ($4 million to winner)
- Defending Champion: Ludvig Aberg -12 (Torrey Pines)
- Most Recent Winner at Riviera: Hideki Matsuyama -17 (2024 Genesis Invitational)
- 2024 Scoring Average at Riviera: 70.1
- Average Winning Score of Last 5 Tournaments at Riviera: -15.2
Riviera will test every club in a player's bag. You have to be able to work the ball both ways off the tee, be strong with the mid-to-long irons, get it up and down from a variety of different lies around the greens and be consistent inside of 10 feet on the greens. This is a very tough golf course to fake it at. There aren't really any hazards out there, but you need to put yourself in good spots to attack the pins. Nearly half of the approaches on this course come from the 150-200 yard range, which is significantly above PGA Tour average. Safe to say proximity is bucket to place a lot of stock in.
The big wrinkle in the gameplan is the weather forecast. Riviera has already been soaked and is expected to get more rain during Thursday's opening round. The good news is that the rest of the week looks pretty good, and temperatures should warm up as the tournament goes on. The players are fortunate the wind is expected to be relatively mild during the tournament rounds.
So, how will this week's rainy conditions in Los Angeles affect the golf course? Well, it will obviously play a little longer than usual, but fairways should also play wider. That said, the rough will be even stickier than the tricky Kikuyu usually is. The greens should be far more receptive, and all those mid-to-long iron approaches will have a better chance of stopping quicker if you are hitting out of the fairway. This will be the third time in four weeks that these players have played on Poa annua, so expect players who have putted well early this season to keep it rolling at Riviera.
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The Genesis Invitational: One and Done Picks
With McIlroy's three wins coming before May last year, I'm aiming to use him early in the season. Although he's not a past winner here, he's had plenty of success at Riviera, with a pair of top-5s when this was a full-field event, as well as a T10 in 2022. He made his 2026 PGA Tour debut at Pebble Beach and fared well, posting T14 while ranking third in SG: Tee-to-Green. McIlroy will also have a bigger advantage with driver than he did last week. From a leverage standpoint, I don't think he's going to be overly popular. --Ryan Pohle
Cantlay checks too many boxes to ignore. Coming off back-to-back top-5 finishes at Riviera, he sits near the top of this field in Strokes Gained: Approach, Tee-to-Green and Ball Striking, backed by solid putting and plenty of length off the tee. His 2026 form also commands attention, highlighted by a tournament-best SG: APP in the final round at Pebble Beach and a finish near the top in GIR. With two top-15s in three starts to open the season, the Long Beach native and UCLA product carries well-timed momentum for a home-turf run at the Genesis. --Lauren Jump
It's early in the season, but this feels like a pivotal week. I say that because I'm guessing a lot of OAD players will be on Cantlay, and while I like that play as well, I think Fleetwood is playing with more confidence and therefore is a bigger threat to win. Cantlay is undoubtedly the safest play on the board -- he has finished outside the top 20 just once in eight starts -- but I'm looking for more upside, and given how Fleetwood fared at Pebble Beach I'm locking him in. I'm fully aware I have made "the safe play" almost every week thus far, so perhaps I'm pivoting just to mix it up. I hope that's not the case, but sometimes we aren't consciously aware why we lean one way over another when the numbers are not enough to break the tie. --Greg Vara
I am alarmingly high on Hovland's chances this week. He is the best iron player in the world not named Scottie Scheffler and approach play has long been king at Riviera. Last season he ranked second in SG: Approach, first in proximity 150-175 yards and second in proximity 175-200 yards. Those will be hugely important factors to success this week. Hovland has a great track record at Riviera, going T5-T4-T20-T19 in four career starts. He is just one solid putting week away. --Ryan Andrade
Riviera is likely to play even longer than its already demanding 7,383 scorecard yardage indicates due to soft/wet conditions, boosting the importance of driving distance to combat a tough batch of par-4s that stretch 450 yards or more. Given the $4M first-place payout, it's fine to burn an elite bomber like McIlroy, who ranks second in SG: Off-the-Tee and third in carry distance over the past two years. He has placed top-10 in three of eight prior appearances at Riv, and he racked up 25 total birdies and two eagles at last week's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he finished fourth among the field in SG: Approach and first in percentage of 320-plus yard drives. --Bryce Danielson
Fleetwood has played Riviera four times and, while the appearances have been spaced out, he has gotten better every time. Experience matters here. Fleetwood tied for 10th in 2024, and he has become a far more accomplished player in the ensuing two years. Fleetwood made his 2026 PGA Tour debut just last week, but he was active on the DP World Tour throughout the fall -- winning once and posting two other podium finishes -- and into January. He tied for fourth at Pebble Beach. --Len Hochberg
Schauffele did not participate in last year's edition of this event, but both he and the tournament are back at Riviera, where over seven appearances he has five top-15s -- including a T4 in 2024. He has not been dialed in from 150-to-175 yards early this season, but he has fared particularly well in that department in recent years -- he finished fifth last year and first two seasons prior -- and he is driving the ball far enough to keep most approaches in that range. A prominent golfer snapped a stateside winless drought last week, and Schauffele is primed to make it two in a row. --Kevin O'Brien
The Genesis Invitational: One and Done Fades
Henley is coming off a respectable T19 showing at Pebble Beach, but there's some cause for concern, as he lost strokes on approach for just the second time since the start of last year. His results here aren't bad, but he's also never posted a top-10. I will look to save Henley until I see some better iron play, and think he's a good target for the U.S. Open, The Open or at Harbour Town. --Ryan Pohle
Kim's 2026 start is impressive, but I'm pumping the brakes at Riviera. He has made just five of 10 cuts here, and even his weekends have mostly produced lackluster finishes, including a T44 in 2024. Add in last week's T45 at Pebble Beach after a 74-72 stretch, and it feels like the wrong time to bet on a turnaround at a course that hasn't suited him, at least for OAD purposes. --Lauren Jump
This one scares me a little because Henley has been so consistent with 11 consecutive top-20s, but it's hard to ignore his track record at Riviera. Henley has played this event 10 times and has cracked the top 20 just once. It's a strange stat because you'd think with only one top-20 he would have a bunch of missed cuts, but that's not the case. Henley has only missed the cut here three times in 10 starts, but for some reason he can't get anything done on the weekend. --Greg Vara
I'm not sure we can call it a "bad start" to the year, but I don't think a T19-T24-T28-T37 stretch is what many had in mind after Griffin's absolutely torrid second half of 2025. The ball striking really just hasn't been there, and Griffin has been forced to rely heavily on the short game to grind out the finishes he has posted up to this point. He ranks sixth this season in SG: Around-the-Green, but is outside the top 100 in SG: Off-the-Tee and SG: Approach. It's early so we can't sound the alarm bells on Griffin quite yet, but there are certainly plenty of better options at Riviera. Hopefully Griffin can get the swing dialed in a little more and can be a usable option in OAD later in the campaign. --Ryan Andrade
Young finished outside the top 40 in back-to-back starts dating to the WM Phoenix Open, and lousy approach play has been the primary culprit, as he ranks just 65th among this 72-man field in GIR percentage and 56th in SG: APP this year. He also struggled with the putter on Pebble Beach's Poa annua greens. While others lean on Young's promising course history, I'll fade the questionable recent form in OAD. --Bryce Danielson
McIlroy's average finish at Riviera is better than most golfers in the field, but he went cut-T10-T29-T24 in the four Genesis Invitationals from 2021-2024. He's a golfer I want to deploy at a major championship, and he hasn't fared well enough at Riviera for me to stop and think twice. --Kevin O'Brien
Don't get burned by late withdrawals. Visit RotoWire's PGA tournament field page for a live-updated summary of the field for the current week and list of players who have dropped out.
