Round 4 - Bubba Watson wins third Genesis Open

February 18, 2018

Bubba Watson, who thought about retiring after a form slump last year, has won the Genesis Open in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Watson carded a closing 69 to finish at 12-under 272 for his third victory at Riviera, having won in 2014 and 2016.

Fellow Americans Tony Finau (69) and Kevin Na (69) tied for second on 10-under.

Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer also won the event, previously known as the Los Angeles Open, three times each.

Watson revealed he had considered retiring after struggling in 2017 with a new ball, since discarded, among other issues.

The two-times Masters champion dropped outside the top 100 in the world -- he was 117th when he arrived at Riviera -- but will now move back into the top-50.

"My goal has always been to get to 10 (wins)," a misty-eyed Watson said in a greenside interview.

"There so many emotions going through my head right now. You never know if you're going to play good again, never know if you're going to lift a trophy again.

"I thought about retirement ... I mentioned it about 10-12 times to my wife. We sat down and had many talks about it because physically I wasn't ready to play."

The 39-year-old said he had plenty of other business interests outside golf to keep him busy if he had retired.

Half of his career wins have come at Riviera or Augusta National, but the situation did not look good on Sunday after he struggled in the front nine and played three bogeys.

He got back on track and sank a 10-foot birdie at the par-five 11th, then took a two-shot lead with a 50-foot bunker shot at the 14th that clattered against the pin and dropped in.

Watson had no opposition in the final stretch and only had to avoid mistakes.

Defending champion Dustin Johnson finished tied for 16th at four-under, a strokeahead of four-times major winner Rory McIlroy.

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Round 3 - Bubba Watson fires 65 to edge ahead of Cantlay

February 17, 2018

Bubba Watson swooped for an eagle and five birdies in a six-under par 65 at Riviera Country Club on Saturday to seize a one-shot lead going into the final round of the Genesis Open.

Two-time Masters champion Watson is also a two-time winner at Riviera, claiming the most recent of his nine US PGA Tour titles here in 2016.

His 10-under-par total of 203 put him one stroke in front of Southern California native Patrick Cantlay, who rolled in a 55-foot birdie putt at the 18th to cap a 69 for 204.

Watson, energized perhaps by his appearance in the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game on Friday night, produced his signature moment right out of the gate.

His second shot at the par-five first rolled within 18 inches of the pin to give him a tap-in eagle.

"We guessed right on number one today, trying to get the right yardage, the right club for the wind and everything," Watson said. "It calms you down real fast when you tap in for eagle."

A par save from a bunker at the second kept the momentum going. Watson chipped in for a birdie from just off the green at the par-three sixth, the first of four birdies in a five-hole span.

He followed his only bogey of the day at 15 with a birdie at 17.

"Knowing how difficult this golf course is, my whole thing was trying to hit greens, somehow just hang in there wherever I was," Watson said. "We hung on."

With his monster birdie at 18 Cantlay separated himself from a chasing pack.

Australian Cameron Smith, Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell and Americans Kevin Na and Tony Finau shared third on 205.

McDowell, who shared the overnight lead with Cantlay, carded a one-under par 70. Na posted a 67, Finau a 68 and Smith climbed up the leaderboard with a bogey-free six-under par 65.

Cantlay was delighted with his closing birdie, but said the real key to his round was grinding through holes three through seven without a bogey.

"I hit great pitches and I hit a great bunker shot on three and I made all those putts and that was huge for the momentum," he said.

The stretch included a tough up and down at the par-three six, where he opted to chip over the small bunker in the middle of the green.

His shot landed perfectly above the cup and funnelled down to the hole for a par.

"I was able to get so much height on it that I thought it would be pretty good when it was in the air."

Cantlay, a former top-ranked amateur, will be seeking his second US PGA Tour title, after winning in Las Vegas in November.

He and Watson, who has slipped to 117th in the world after a forgettable 2017 season, will play in the last group on Sunday with Smith, whose pro wins include last year's Zurich Classic of New Orleans and the Australian PGA Championship in December.

Fifteen players are within five shots of the lead, including world number one and defending champion Dustin Johnson.

After squeezing into the weekend, Johnson blistered Riviera with a bogey-free seven-under 64 to move four shots off Watson's lead.

"Making the turn I said we've got 27 holes to see how good we are, we can get back in this thing," Johnson said. "You never know what's going to happen. I need to get off to a good start again."

Round 2 - Cantlay & McDowell leading Genesis, Woods misses cut

February 16, 2018

Tiger Woods's return to Riviera Country Club lasted just two days as the 14-time major champion missed the cut in the Genesis Open, where Graeme McDowell and Patrick Cantlay shared the lead on Friday.

Woods's eight bogeys included three in a row on the back nine as he battled to a five-over par 76.

"I really didn't play well today," Woods said. "I missed every tee shot left and I did not putt well, didn't feel very good on the greens and consequently never made a run.

"I knew I had to make a run on that back nine, and I went the other way."

Woods had a 36-hole total of six-over par 148 -- four shots outside the projected cutline as darkness fell and 13 shots off the pace set by McDowell and Cantlay.

McDowell opened his five-under par 66 with three straight birdies at the 10th, 11th and 12th. He followed that with back-to-back bogeys but grabbed four more birdies to surge up the leaderboard.

Cantlay, who shared the overnight lead with Tony Finau, had five birdies in his two-under par 69.

He launched a string of three straight birdies with a near hole-in-one at the par-three sixth, his 15th of the day.

American Sam Saunders was seven-under with three to play when darkness fell with a handful of players on the course.

Ryan Moore closed out a three-under par 68 in the fading light to reach the clubhouse on six-under par 136.

Former US Open winner McDowell has just one top-10 finish worldwide in the past 18 months. Without a victory since 2015, he has plummeted to 219th in the world rankings and arrived at Riviera off three straight missed cuts to start the season.

He said his game for the past several months had been much better than those results indicated.

"All I'm missing is a couple little numbers and a little bit of confidence," McDowell said. "I'm really excited to be going into the weekend of the tournament on the business end of things."

Woods has no such weekend excitement to look forward to.

The southern California native grew up playing Riviera, and indeed played his first US PGA Tour event here as a 16-year-old in 1992.

But he's never won in 11 prior appearances, and hadn't teed it up on the classic course west of downtown Los Angeles in 12 years.

It was always going to be a tough proposition in the second tournament of his latest comeback bid -- three weeks after he finished tied for 23rd at Torrey Pines.

This week the missed fairways were joined by plenty of missed greens and, on Friday, missed putts.

"I didn't feel very good when I was warming up with my putter," said Woods, who had three three-putts on the back nine.

- Iron shots 'not there' -

Making matters worse, he wasn't giving himself many comfortable looks.

"All the spots you're supposed to not miss it in, I was putting it in," Woods said. "That was frustrating, because I knew where to hit it and I wasn't able to hit it there.

"My wedge game is fine," he said. "But my normal iron shots that I've always dialled in for much of my entire career, it's just not there."

Woods said the real cure is more tournament play. On Friday he committed to next week's Honda Classic in Florida, his decision to play back-to-back weeks a testament to his faith in his hard won fitness.

"I've just got to play more tournaments," he said.

While Woods's weekend duties are reduced to those of tournament host, with his TGR Foundation the charitable beneficiary of the event, a bevy of players remain in the hunt.

Twenty-three players are within five strokes of the lead. That includes four-time major winner Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, who both played alongside Woods.

Thomas, whose five victories last season included the US PGA Championship, carded an even par 71 while McIlroy signed for a two-under 69. They were both in a group of 10 sharing 15th place on two-under.

"It's sort of anyone's tournament right now," McIlroy said. "Thirty-six holes around here, it's a lot of golf."

Round 1 - Cantlay & Finau tied for lead in California

February 15, 2018

The guy who grew up 40 miles away, first played Riviera as a teenager and was out of golf with a bad back returned Thursday and shared the lead at the Genesis Open.

That would be Patrick Cantlay, not Tiger Woods.

And the biggest difference was that hardly anyone saw it.

Cantlay, the No. 1 amateur in the world when he was at UCLA, birdied all the par 5s and kept it smart the rest of the way around a firm Riviera course for a 5-under 66 to share the lead with Tony Finau.

Woods, who grew up in Cypress and made his PGA Tour debut at Riviera when he was 16, played this event for the first time in 12 years. He lost a tee shot in a eucalyptus tree and made double bogey as part of a rugged start, and then settled in with a series of key putts for a 72.

Finau started with four birdies in five holes and finished with one last birdie for his 66.

An unusually large crowd for Thursday at Riviera was out early to watch Woods, with fans standing six-deep around some of the greens. There still were not enough people to help locate his tee shot on the par-5 11th hole, presumably swallowed up by the tree.

Woods is playing Riviera for the ninth time as a pro, the most of any PGA Tour course without ever winning. His expectations are tempered now at age 42 and returning from his fourth back surgery. His game isn't sharp, though it's moving in the right direction. He made five birdies despite hitting only seven greens in regulation, and he recovered from being 2 over after three holes.

''I'm not that far off to really putting some good numbers out there,'' Woods said. ''I've got to clean up my card - too many bogeys out there. If I can just clean that up, I can start making my way up the board.''

Cantlay played with Jordan Spieth (71) and fellow UCLA alum Kevin Chappell (69), and as they finished in the twilight, the crowd had thinned considerably. They missed a clean round by Cantlay, whose only bogey came on the par-3 fourth hole when he came up short of the green and missed a 10-foot putt.

Otherwise, he was smart, simple and confident.

''I'm pretty familiar with the golf course, and you've just got to hit a lot of smart shots over and over and over again, and not get too greedy,'' Cantlay said.

He can't remember how many rounds he has played at Riviera. The Bruins typically played at Bel-Air on Tuesday and Thursday, and Riviera about once a month.

''I feel very familiar with the lines on the golf course, and it's one of my favorite golf courses,'' he said. ''I think the architecture out here is definitely one of the best we play all year. I think it rewards really smart, safe golf a lot. I say safe, but just picking your spots, not trying to get overly aggressive.''

He was a little aggressive, intentionally or not, with a 9-iron in the 13th that was left of the flag on a green that moves to the left. He holed a 15-foot birdie putt, and a small clan of Bruins-clad fans broke into a cheer, ''U-C-L-A, UCLA fight, fight, fight!''

Cantlay smiled walking off the green.

Defending champion Dustin Johnson got off to a rough start, particularly on No. 5. He played his third shot from ankle-high grass and it flew over the green. His chip came back down the slope and the world's No. 1 player walked off with a triple bogey.

Johnson wound up with a 74.

Sam Saunders, who last year started with a 64, was among three players at 67. Bubba Watson was in the group at 68.

Twelve players did not finish the round before darkness.

Woods played with Justin Thomas (69) and Rory McIlroy (71).

They had the largest gallery of the day, most of them to see Woods, who had not played at Riviera since 2006. It was never hard to figure out where Woods was on the golf course, and that was particularly true for Saunders.

He was teeing off on the par-3 fourth when he looked down the hill at Woods playing the 18th.

''I looked over and watched because I grew up watching Tiger do what he did,'' Saunders said. ''And I'm a big fan like we all are out here and it's really cool to see him out and we all want him to be out here every week and playing well. It just brings a different buzz to the tournament and it's really good for the game of golf, so it's cool for me to be playing in a tournament that he's playing in and be able to compete against him, a guy that I grew up just in awe of basically.''

Saunders knows all about the energy one player can bring to a tournament. He heard plenty of stories about his grandfather, Arnold Palmer, who first brought the masses to golf more than a half-century ago.

''I think that's why I have so much respect for what he did and admire his career so much, because I didn't get to see my grandfather's firsthand like I got to see Tiger's growing up watching TV,'' Saunders said. ''I know there's a lot of parallels there.''

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