We are coming off of an exciting week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am where Scottie Scheffler made a late Sunday push, Collin Morikawa ended a drought, and a few other big names showcased form.
What is in store as we finish the California swing at Riviera Country Club?
Genesis Invitational Ranking Process
Before you open up another tab to do any research for this event, it’s important to remember that the 2025 version was played at Torrey Pines due to the wildfires that took Riviera off the table.
That field was just as loaded as this one, but it’s hard to glean much from Ludvig Aberg beating Maverick McNealy by a stroke in a different setting.
Now that we have that out of the way, onto this course.
This is different from what we saw last week: it’s a long track with very little penalty for crooked drives. Approach play is always king, and this week is no different. I’ll get to that. But there are no shortage of players in this shortened field that often sacrifice precision for power, a decision that could pay off in a major way.
Since 2024, Ranks Against This Field
- Marco Penge: 1st in distance, 72nd in accuracy
- Rory McIlroy: 2nd in distance, 71st in accuracy
- Aldrich Potgieter: 3rd in distance, 61st in accuracy
- Chris Gotterup: 4th in distance, 57th in accuracy
- Kurt Kitayama: 6th in distance, 45th in accuracy
- Jake Knapp: 7th in distance, 59th in accuracy
- Taylor Pendrith: 8th in distance, 63rd in accuracy
- Cam Young: 11th in distance, 66th in accuracy
- Xander Schauffele: 12th in distance, 65th in accuracy
That’s an interesting mix of favorites and long shots. McIlroy made a Sunday push, while the trajectory of Schauffele was highlighted in my recap of Pebble Beach (Pebble Beach Fantasy Takeaways: Collin Morikawa Won but Still Isn’t a Season-Long Buy).
But that’s only part of the equation. You can drive the ball as far as you want, but if you aren’t prepared to answer the 150-to-200-yard approach question, you’re essentially drawing dead given the rate of approach shots that fall into that bucket relative to PGA Tour norms.
Course history at Riviera CC for the Genesis Invitational going back to 2016.
⛳️Includes average finish position and SG per round in each category. Players are sorted by SG: Total.
⛳️3rd most predictive annual course on Tour.
⛳️17 of the last 19 winners have played Riviera at… pic.twitter.com/FOAyhCmQsT
— Ron Klos (@PGASplits101) February 16, 2026
With that comes bogey avoidance. While this is a scorable course, the bogey rate is higher than the annual standard, and that means it’s a priority for me. If we are expecting the winning score to be in the -16 range, lost strokes aren’t just a step backwards. They could turn into multi-shot swings.
This is a Par 71 course, and that means one fewer Par 5, thus putting me in position to further drill down on those who perform well on the Par 4s. That’s not rare, but it is worth noting as we try to gather every bit of upside that we can as we seek out our one-and-done selection and construct DFS lineups.
Genesis Invitational Rankings
There is certainly a level of strategy that comes with one-and-done. It’s not just a point-and-click situation with the power ranks. That said, I do think it’s valuable to share the rankings every week, as we are all in different pools with different restrictions.
- Scottie Scheffler
- Si Woo Kim
- Collin Morikawa
- Rory McIlroy
- Xander Schauffele
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Russell Henley
- Harris English
- Viktor Hovland
- Pierceson Coody
- Kurt Kitayama
- Max Homa
- Chris Gotterup
- Hideki Matsuyama
- Ben Griffin
- Patrick Cantlay
- Ryan Gerard
- Rickie Fowler
- Matt Fitzpatrick
- JJ Spaun
I’m playing all of my one-and-done picks for this piece in a tournament. So far I’ve used Russell Henley (T-19 at Sony), Sepp Straka (MC at AmEx), Hideki Matsuyama (T-11 at Farmers), Si Woo Kim (T-3 at WM Phoenix), and Tommy Fleetwood (T-4 at Pebble Beach).
Am I getting hot? I’m not going that far, but it’s been a nice little run of late. With this week being an elevated event, I knew I’d be circling the top of the board. I think I probably end up playing a lot of Max Homa and Ryan Gerard in DFS this week (check back Wednesday!), but they felt too cute with this money at the top.
At the end of the day, I was torn between Schauffele and Cantlay (I wedged both into my Genesis Invitational DFS Preview). I think Schauffele is the better player, and that’s exactly why I chose Cantlay.
I’m going to be comfortable in using Schauffele in just about every one of the remaining big money weeks. His profile is trending up, and his track record suggests that he is more than capable of playing at that elite level for an extended stretch.
Cantlay is more fickle. If you don’t believe me, his T-13, MC, and T-23 start to this season paints the same picture. There is downside to fear, but he has improved his approach play each week this season and holds a significant edge over Schauffele in Par 4 scoring over his past 24 rounds.
He’s also been special here. Forget the results (consecutive top-5s). I’m more buying the well-rounded nature in how he made those happen. Outside of 2022, his ball-striking around this venue has been great, and his best performance on these huge greens was his last one (four straight seasons of improvement).
It’s not the most comfortable click or the most enjoyable watch, but I like Cantlay to build on what we saw this past week and be in the mix entering Sunday. For me, that’s enough optimism to justify holding the Schauffele bullet for another time.
Could he win for the first time in nearly 1,300 days?
