The PGA TOUR closes out the West Coast swing this week with the second straight Signature Event on the schedule. After last week’s trip to Pebble Beach, the top golfers in the game will head to the Genesis Invitational. The 2026 Genesis Invitational will take place at The Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The event begins on Thursday, February 19, and will conclude on Sunday, February 22, weather permitting.
Let’s start the week with a look at the format, history and course for the 2026 Genesis Invitational.
The Format of the Genesis Invitational
Like last week, this is a Signature Event, meaning a limited field is eligible, and the purse is elevated. The field this week is 72 players deep (compared to 80 for last week’s event), and there will be a cut this week, reducing the field to the top 50 and ties plus any player within 10 strokes of the lead after the second round. It’s a lighter cut than usual, but not everyone is guaranteed to get in four rounds, unlike last week at Pebble Beach.
Tiger Woods will once again host the event, but he is not in the field. The winner will walk away with a $4 million winner’s prize (from a $20 million purse) and 700 PGA TOUR FedExCup points.
The history of the tournament
This year will be the 100th playing of the Genesis Invitational, which began as the Los Angeles Open in 1926. While it has been held at several courses throughout its history, it has been played 60 times at The Riviera Country Club. This year, the tournament will return to “The Riv” after moving to Torrey Pines last year.
In the relocated event, Ludvig Aberg defeated Maverick McNealy by one stroke at Torrey Pines. In 2024, which was the last time the event was played at Riviera, Hideki Matsuyama defeated Luke List and Will Zalatoris by three strokes.
Although it was the site of Tiger Woods’ first PGA TOUR event as an amateur and he is now the host, Woods actually never won the tournament. He lost in a playoff in 1998 and finished runner-up again in 1999. Since 2000, Mike Weir and Phil Mickelson each won back-to-back years, while Bubba Watson won three times but never consecutively. All three of those players play left-handed, and lefties historically have had success at this event.
Aberg and Matusyama are both in the field this week, along with past champions Adam Scott and Max Homa. Last week’s winner Collin Morikawa will tee it up again, looking for back-to-back wins, while Scottie Scheffler and Chris Gotterup are also looking to add another win to their season before the focus shifts to the Sunshine State for the next few weeks.
Check out the full field and opening odds on DraftKings Sportsbook.
A Closer Look at the Course
After relocating in 2025 due to the L.A. area wildfires, the PGA TOUR returns to The Riviera Country Club for The Genesis Invitational. The course is renowned for its compact design, which is built to test all the clubs in players’ bags. The Kikuyu rough is especially penalizing and unpredictable, and the course is designed to make recovery and scrambling very difficult.
The course doesn’t have any water in play or any “gimmicks” to make things more difficult; instead, it’s just an extremely difficult course that demands accuracy, shot-shaping, and length while also rewarding creativity and shot-making.
In two more years, the course will host the 2028 Summer Olympics men’s and women’s golf competitions, and it will also host the 2026 U.S. Women’s Open later this year.
To learn more about the course, check out this hole-by-hole overview from GolfDigest from a few years ago, and the top-10 shots all time at the venue from the PGA TOUR four years ago.
Since it is such a demanding course in so many ways, it’s best to lean into Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green as some of the top stats to target. Players who putt well on Poa annua greens will also be in good shape this week, with course history and Par-5 scoring also worth considering.
Stay tuned to DK Network all week as we run down our top picks and best bets for this week’s event!
