Genesis Invitational finds new host course following LA wildfires
After announcing Riviera Country Club would not host the 2025 Genesis Invitational, the PGA Tour has found a new home. And it’s a very familiar one.
Torrey Pines Golf Course, in San Diego (where the Tour is hosting a separate event this very week), will become the one-time host of the Genesis next month. The Tour announced the move — which had been reported earlier this week — during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open.
The Genesis has been played in the greater Los Angeles area for nearly the last 100 years, but recent wildfires that have ravaged LA County forced the tournament to be relocated for its scheduled week, Feb. 10-16.
As much as it may feel repetitive to run the Tour back at the same golf course just two weeks later, there will be some obvious differences between this week and the Genesis week. Chief among them: Tiger Woods will be involved. The tournament host hasn’t played Torrey Pines since 2020, where he finished T9 in what amounts to his last tournament in contention on the Tour.
Woods has a storied history at the course, including his iconic 2008 U.S. Open victory against Rocco Mediate. Woods also won the Farmers Insurance Open seven times, including four in a row in the mid-2000s. It remains to be seen if he will actually tee it up at the Torrey Pines Genesis event, but considering he tried playing the Genesis last year while battling the flu, it stands to reason he will give it a go.
Notably, the event will also be played exclusively at the South Course. This week’s Farmers Insurance Open is played on the North and South Courses at Torrey, tending to a much larger field (156) than the Genesis (80-ish). As you can see in the scoring averages, the South Course typically plays roughly three strokes harder than the North Course — in relation to par — so the Genesis will feature four days of that test rather than just three.
It will also feature a much stronger field. The Genesis Invitational is a Signature Event, which means it will feature a $20 million purse and a field including the top 50 players from 2024. That means we can expect Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa and many of the best players in the world to play at Torrey Pines, something that isn’t the case this week. Morikawa was among a lengthy list of pros who withdrew from the event this week.
The Tour announcement promised there will be multiple “Los Angeles-related relief initiatives” that week to benefit those impacted by the wildfires. The Genesis plans to return to Riviera Country Club in 2026.
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