Weekly Fantasy Golf Recap: Water Under the Bridgeman

This article is part of our Weekly Fantasy Golf Recap series.

When we last saw Jacob Bridgeman a week ago at Pebble Beach, he was literally on the beach. Contending for the title on 18, he tried for eagle and went way, way left, almost in the ocean. On CBS, Trevor Immelman said, "This could be expensive."

Bridgeman ended up making a miracle bogey but, in fact, it was expensive. He fell from possibly a share of second place, earning close to $1.5 million, to a tie for eighth and around a half a million dollars.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't an expenditure as much as an investment in learning how to win.

Because when Bridgeman found himself leading The Genesis Invitational at famed Riviera on Sunday, playing alongside Rory McIlroy, he was able to withstand all that was going on around him and close the deal this time for his first PGA Tour victory.

Mind you, it was not without its trepidations. Bridgeman lost all but one shot of his six-stroke overnight lead and needed to drain a knee-knocking 3-and-a-half-footer for par on 18 before exhaling and shaking the hand of tournament host Tiger Woods.

He shot a 1-over 72 for an 18-under total, with McIlroy and hard-charging Kurt Kitayama sharing second place. 

It was the 100th anniversary of the old Los Angeles Open, first played in 1926. And Bridgeman became the first player to win in his Riviera debut in more than a half-century, since Pat Fitzsimons in 1975 (h/t PGA Tour).

"This morning I wouldn't say it's a bad thing to let myself think about winning," Bridgeman said, "but I did and I thought it would be a lot easier than it was. I kind of had everything under control especially to start the day and I felt great throughout the day. Then some guys started making a little run and they got a little closer. I had a couple unfortunate breaks. Yeah, it got a lot tighter than I wanted it to."

Even casual golf followers could have seen this win coming, and not just because of the close call at Pebble Beach. The 26-year-old Clemson alum came out of nowhere last season to reach the Tour Championship and had a near-miss at the Valspar. This season, he already had a top-5, a top-10 and two top-20s before playing the Genesis.

Bridgeman has always been a great putter and good with wedge in hand. But his irons were an issue -- he ranked 124th in Strokes Gained: Approach last season. For the week, he led the field in both SG: Approach and Putting. This season, he's now ranked seventh in Approach, to go along with being fifth in Putting. That's gonna win you a lot of golf tournaments.

Bridgeman said he spent the offseason working on his iron game with his coach, Scott Hamilton.

"I've never led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach ever," he said. "I've probably never been close, I don't know. I've done putting before, I'm always good at that, but I've never come close with approach. That is hats off to Scott because he has done some amazing things for me."

So where does Bridgeman go from here? He was in the published field for this coming week's Cognizant and he said on Sunday at Riviera that he's still playing. We shall see.

But more to the point, a guy who has played well for two seasons now, and is ranked top-10 on Tour in arguably the two most important stats, and is now ranked 20th in the world rankings, is not going anywhere.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Rory McIlroy
McIlroy started six shots back -- a lot, but not insurmountable considering who he is and how imposing he can be playing alongside a non-winner. But he couldn't get anything going on the greens on Sunday, ranking 45th in putting for the round. For the week, he ranked a very good 21st, and was third in SG: Approach. McIlroy still hasn't won at Riviera -- same as Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Scottie Scheffler. But his game seems fine as he nears defense of his PLAYERS Championship title in three weeks.

Kurt Kitayama
Kitayama had a fantastic Sunday in which he shot a 7-under 64 to come within one shot of a playoff. He also shot 64 on Friday. A win would have been his second in a Signature Event, having captured Bay Hill in 2023. This was Kitayama's first top-20 of the season. He won't be near the top of the leaderboard every week, but he does have a few of these in him every season. Bay Hill is just two weeks away.

Adam Scott
It's not exactly death, taxes and Scott at Riviera, but he does excel at Riviera. He's a two-time winner there, and on Sunday the 45-year-old Aussie closed with a 63 to zoom up the leaderboard into solo fourth. He ranked sixth in driving distance in a field of big hitters. Not bad for an "old man." Scott has made all four of his cuts in 2026, but this was his first top-20. At this point, his good weeks will be more sporadic, but we know some of the courses where he's best. Augusta is one. 

Aldrich Potgieter
The 21-year-old South African started his season like this: MC-MC-MC-T60. Naturally, he finished fifth at the Genesis. Potgieter is great off the tee, ranking third on Tour in driving distance, and that certainly helps at a course such as Riviera. But many other courses require expertise in other areas, with distance not overly important, and that's why there will be more bad weeks than good ones for Potgieter, even though the good ones can be great.

Jake Knapp
Another week, another strong showing for Knapp. He finished solo sixth, his fourth top-10 in a row. Just like Bridgeman had become a staple on the first page of leaderboards before winning, Knapp seems close too. Of course, he's already won on the PGA Tour, and that should help him when he's in the thick of things on a not-too-distant Sunday.

Collin Morikawa
A week after winning, Morikawa impressively kept his foot on the gas. He even closed with a 65 to tie for seventh. With his new mallet putter, Morikawa again did well on the greens, ranking 23rd in the field.

Tommy Fleetwood
Fleetwood had another good week and this tie for seventh gave him two top-10s in two starts on the PGA Tour in 2026. He had a spectacular slam-dunk eagle-2 on 15 -- one of the hardest holes on the course -- and then birdied 16, as well. 

Cameron Young
Young impressively shot 66-66 on the weekend and closed Sunday with three straight birdies to zoom up the leaderboard into a tie for seventh. This was his first top-20 in four starts in 2026. Let's see whether he just needed to get a few tournaments under his belt before starting to contend.

Xander Schauffele

Maybe Schauffele needed to ramp up like Young. He's improved every week he's played in 2026, from MC to T41 to T19 to this week's tie for seventh. Of course, he still hasn't had a sniff of contending, so there is work to do. But he appears on the right track to make 2026 better than 2025 was. The stats are encouraging, ranking top-60 in every strokes-gained metric other than Around-the-Green.

Scottie Scheffler
Well, it really took a long time to get down here to Scheffler, didn't it? His streak of consecutive top-10s has ended at 18. He had another slow start, but this time there was no miracle charge. More of a mini-charge, as Scheffler came close to missing the cut on Friday before winding up in a tie for 12th. These slow starts are close to becoming a concern. After playing three weeks in a row, Scheffler will take next week off before returning for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Presumably, he will spend the week trying to determine how to eliminate the slow starts. There's a good chance he figures it out.

Jordan Spieth
Spieth turned in by far his best showing in the early stages of 2026 with a tie for 12th. He did a lot of things well, mostly with his shorter clubs. Spieth ranked 13th in the field in SG: Around-the-Green and second in SG: Putting. Consistently hitting the ball in the fairway remains a work in progress.

Marco Penge
The top European import from the DP World Tour this season had gotten off to a very slow start. Penge didn't just play great on the Euro tour last year, he was ranked around 30th in the world. But he opened his career as a PGA Tour member MC-MC-T64. He was ranked i the 160s in both driving accuracy and putting – two huge problems. At Riviera, he finished 16th on the leaderboard, 16th in putting and 23rd in fairways hit. We'll monitor this to see whether Penge just needed time to acclimate to his new surroundings or will struggle as a Tour rookie..

Max Greyserman
Greyserman tied for 24th. That's about all we wanted to say, but we did want to show you his hole in one. 

Tony Finau
Finau tied for 28th and closed with three rounds in the 60s after an opening 72. Not amazing, but not bad, either. With two top-20s already in 2026, Finau appears to be playing – how shall we say this? – not as terrible as last year. He qualified for only one playoff event last year so he's a long way from his best years on Tour. He can get back to that level.

MISSED CUTS

Justin Rose, Chris Gotterup, Russell Henley, J.J. Spaun, Keegan Bradley. A maximum of 22 players could've missed the cut, which was the top 50 and ties plus anyone within 10 shots of the lead in the 72-man field. So it's pretty remarkable not only that 21 missed the weekend but that four of them were ranked in the top 10 of the OWGR. That would be Rose, Gotterup, Henley and Spaun. For the first three, hey, missed cuts happen, even in big events. For Spaun, it has continued a troubling start to the season in which he has missed two cuts in four starts with a best showing of T40 at the season-opening Sony. His putter has been a disaster. He's ranked 161st on Tour on the season out of 172 players. … For Bradley, he also has been playing poorly, and who knows if it remains a hangover from Team USA's crushing home loss in the Ryder Cup. Bradley took it very hard. Not many Cup captains return to full-time Tour play, but Bradley obviously has. He has missed two cuts in four starts with a best of T29 at Pebble Beach.

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