Patrick Waters 
The Range is a course breakdown for the upcoming PGA tournament with a DFS perspective. This week the tour is in California as the players face off at the Genesis Open.
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The Basics
Course: Riviera CC ( Pacific Palisades, CA )
Par: 71
Length: 7,322 yards
Fairways: Kikuyu
Greens: Poa
Past five winners: ’19 JB. Holmes (-14), ’18 B. Watson (-12), ’17 D. Johnson (-17), ’16 B. Watson (-15), ’15 J. Hahn (-6)
For a hole by hole breakdown, visit the PGA Tour website here.
Course Breakdown
Since the 1999 season, the Genesis Open is played at the Riveria Country club. Over the last ten years, the average winning score is -12 with a high of -17 and a low of -6. Twelve of the last twenty rounds have rated as a difficult score. Let’s look at some of the top golfers over the last 24 rounds and how they’ve fared with difficult scoring.
The fairways at the Genesis Open are more narrow than tour average, with this in mind we’ll want to focus on golfers who are sharp ball-strikers (like most weeks). Below are the top ten golfers over the last 24 rounds.
Strokes gained putting tends to be a high correlation to success here. Golfers who can perform well on Poa greens could gain an edge on this tough course. The illustration here shows the top golfers over the last 24 rounds.
Here are the golfers that have performed well under all three conditions listed above.
Player Fit – Back End
At the Genesis Open, most of the toughest holes and a few of the easiest holes are the Par 4 450 – 500 yards. Looking for golfers that excel in this range will be a nice spot to start. Between the Par 3s and the longer holes on the Riviera CC, the long irons will play a huge role. Look for golfers that play well between 175 – 200 yards in proximity.
With the smaller greens, GIR should play a big part. For those that miss the greens in regulation, they’ll need to be able to scramble to save par. As usual, Opportunity Gained will be part of the model but unlike most weeks I’m leaning more bogey avoidance over birdie or better.
Here are the combined stats from up above which will represent the golfers below when they’re evenly weighted.
Final Recap for the Genesis Open
Looking for players that have played the course before should be a priority. I’m not saying new timers cannot do well, but according to Datagolf the Riviera CC plays only behind Augusta for course history relevance.
Course Setup
Difficult Scoring
Hard to hit fairways
Poa Greens
Player Efficiencies
Par 4 scoring: 450 – 500 yards
The proximity between 175 – 200 yards
GIR
Scrambling
Opportunity Gained
Bogey Avoidance
Thanks for reading and I hope this article is a great starting place for your DFS research at the Genesis Open. Look out for the Insight Sheet dropping Wednesday. It will include my personal player pool and reasoning why each golfer was chosen. Also Wednesday night you can find me in the Win Daily Discord helping members with their lineups and last-minute questions.
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Stat Source: Fantasy National
