The 4th gap at Riviera might get tougher in 2024.
Paul Mounce/Corbis by way of Getty Photographs
Eventually yr’s Genesis Invitational, it wasn’t simply exhausting to seek out the inexperienced at Rivieria’s par-3 4th in regulation, it was darn close to unattainable for even among the greatest gamers on this planet.
On the opening which measured 236 yards on the scorecard, simply 37 of 241 tee photographs — 15.35 % — for the week discovered the placing floor.
And it might solely get tougher subsequent yr.
Revealed in a tweet by golf podcaster and author Andy Lack and later confirmed to GOLF by the PGA Tour, Riviera has constructed a model again tee to par-3. The brand new scorecard yardage? A beefy 265 yards.
In keeping with Genesis Invitational Chief Referee Steve Rintoul, the brand new tee at No. 4 “has been talked about for a few years.” Along with including about 30 yards to the scorecard yardage, the tee has additionally been moved to the fitting, into the hillside on the fringe of the property. Rintoul additionally added that the PGA Tour’s design workforce, agronomy workers and guidelines workers have been in “lock step” with the membership as they’ve altered the course.
“Its location up into the hillside, and robust proper to left motion of the realm wanting the inexperienced permits the opening to be performed extra like a ‘redan,’” Rintoul mentioned over e-mail to GOLF. “It provides quite a lot of tee yardages to set the opening up starting from 210 to 265.”
Rintoul continued, affirming that climate in the end determines course setup, particularly contemplating the normal spot on the calendar for the Genesis in February, which is often the wettest and coldest month in Los Angeles.
This previous February, No. 4 performed across the scorecard yardage for the whole week, anyplace between 230 and 245 yards.
“I believe the gamers in The Genesis Invitational Signature Occasion will see a little bit of the whole lot over the 4 days,” Rintoul mentioned. “Nonetheless, {the summertime} occasions developing at Riviera (Ladies’s US Open, Olympics and the US Open) will permit for firmer and hotter situations the place the ball performed alongside the bottom, chasing onto the inexperienced, shall be more practical.
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“As at all times we are going to consider the playability of the opening and collect participant enter on the design, however our typical technique is to tip-toe into utilizing main adjustments. The 265-yard tee is unlikely for use all 4 days. We are going to shake up the set-up size, based mostly on the climate as required.”
A part of the problem to find the inexperienced at No. 4 owes to its “Redan” template design. The design requires both a right-to-left formed shot to land quick proper of the inexperienced and take the extreme right-to-left slope of the inexperienced advanced to roll onto the placing floor or a excessive left-to-right form that tries to make use of the slope to cease the ball. However the challenge with the primary choice is that the grass across the inexperienced is sticky Kikuyu grass, which suggests photographs hit excessive, quick and proper don’t at all times launch. However photographs that landed on the inexperienced nonetheless rolled over.
Given the dismal inexperienced in regulation numbers this previous February— simply six gamers discovered the inexperienced in the course of the ultimate spherical — the opening was panned by PGA Tour professional Adam Schenk, calling it “horrible.”
“Who says it’s important to use the identical FW grass round all of the greens?” Schenk tweeted after lacking the lower. “Usually, I’d say may very well be to [sic] exhausting for upkeep & price an excessive amount of…however it’s Riv that that excuse is out.”
The opening performed because the third hardest gap for the week at .204 photographs over par, however that isn’t among the many prime 10 hardest par-3s on the PGA Tour this season. It ranks because the 18th hardest par-3 on Tour, the identical place it held in 2023. There have been no double bogeys or worse in 2024 and 32 of the 45 gamers who missed the inexperienced Sunday bought up and down.
On the flip facet, the opening produced simply 11 birdies in 2024, the second-fewest on the PGA Tour amongst programs that hosted 4 rounds of an occasion.
In his e-mail to GOLF, Rintoul didn’t point out any adjustments to the grasses across the inexperienced, however we’ll have to attend and see subsequent February on the 2025 Genesis for PGA Tour professionals’ response to the brand new tee.
Viktor Hovland’s fifteenth tee shortcut lower off
Rintoul additionally confirmed two different adjustments the membership made throughout what he known as a “renovation.”
The 18th tee was moved again about 15 yards and to the left, mainly on prime of the place the outdated 4th tee was. This has prolonged the scorecard yardage from 476 yards to 490 and also will make the tee shot straighter into the left-to-right sloping fairway.
However extra intriguing was a change made across the fifteenth tee.
“The ‘hole’ to minimize gap 17 in the course of the play of 15 has been stuffed with three mature sycamore timber,” Rintoul mentioned.
That hole was utilized by a number of gamers on the 2022 Genesis to take an alternate path to the fifteenth inexperienced by enjoying down the seventeenth fairway, most notably Viktor Hovland.
In 2023, wanting making the seventeenth fairway inside out-of-bounds, as was executed throughout this season’s Tour Championship on East Lake’s 18th gap, the PGA Tour positioned a big scoreboard to the fitting of the fifteenth tee to discourage gamers from taking the route. Hovland (and two different gamers) didn’t care and pictures of Hovland aiming instantly over the scoreboard went viral. In complete, gamers solely performed into the green 4 instances that yr.
PGA Tour Dwell.
This previous season, nonetheless, no participant hit a ball into 17 fairway and none will for the foreseeable future with the brand new timber seemingly blocking any likelihood.
