Tiger Woods was the tournament host at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles last week. He wasn’t playing, of course – he hasn’t done that since the 2024 Open Championship at Troon – but he did suggest there was a possibility he might tee it up at the Masters in April and that, now he’s past his 50th birthday, he might at some unspecified point in the future play on the Champions Tour because of “the opportunity to be able to play in a cart”. He also intimated that the decision as to whether he would captain the American Ryder Cup team in Ireland next year was now pretty much up to him.
It was basically back to normal service for this tournament after the devastating effects of the Los Angeles fires necessitated last year’s staging being moved away to San Diego. Jacob Bridgeman won on Sunday by a shot from Rory McIlroy and Kurt Kitayama. A mention is also merited for Marco Penge, the 27-year-old Englishman who had been tied with Bridgeman at halfway and eventually finished in a tie for 16th. He is among the most recent beneficiaries of one aspect of the DP World Tour’s ‘strategic alliance’ with the PGA Tour: the one which means the top-10 players on the DP World Tour who do not possess a PGA Tour card duly acquire one. This is good news for the players involved if not for the ecosystem of the tour in Europe – every year it effectively defenestrates its best players who had yet to establish themselves on an international basis, such as Penge. But good luck to him.
Back to Tiger and the Masters. The 15-time major champion has won five times at Augusta National; at times there he looked invincible. The pre-tournament favourite this year will surely be Scottie Scheffler. The present world No. 1 finished tied 12th in Los Angeles. In his previous nine starts, going back to the Open Championship at Portrush, he had had four wins and five top-4 finishes. His comparatively disappointing showing this time out – he finished with a 65 having only made the cut on the mark – put an end to a streak of 18 consecutive top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour.
The week prior to Riviera, at Pebble Beach, Scheffler had started eight shots off the pace but closed with a 63, a round which hailed a personal first: it included three eagles. It seems Scheffler sets some sort of record most times he plays. If he records another personal first with victory at the US Open in June, he will have completed the career Grand Slam. I think you wouldn’t want to bet too heavily against him at Shinnecock Hills.
Nor at Augusta either. He always wins there in the even-numbered years. Well, in 2022 and 2024 anyway. Arnold Palmer won his four Masters titles in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964. Maybe Scheffler might manage something similar?