Tiger Woods missed the cut at Riviera, but the Genesis Open wasn’t all bad

The full promise of the Genesis Open may not have been realized, but the on-paper hype of a golf tournament is rarely ever met when the shots start flying through the air. Tiger MC’d and Rory, Spieth, JT, and DJ never really got into it.

But we still had Riviera, a star in and of itself and one of the few courses on the PGA Tour you can say that about. And then we got a weekend of Bubba, the game’s ultimate shotmaker, on one of golf’s best courses walking out of the wilderness after a year hiding from the first page of leaderboards.

Bubba’s return is #goodforthegame. Bubba the person may not be to your particular taste. But his game is as fun to watch as any out there, especially in an era when the broadcasts are now showing most (many? some?) shots with tracer technology. After a year of irrelevancy, I have to admit, it was fun as hell to watch him work the ball all around Riviera. I wrote about this more last night right after the win, but getting him back is nothing but good for the PGA Tour.

Sunday we got the full Bubba experience, in all its forms. There was the outrageous shotmaking. There was the healthy post-win cry on his caddie’s shoulders. There was the eccentric press conference that rambled and contradicted itself at times. And there was a prickly complaint about the microphones. This was Bubba coming off a lob pass from a PGA Tour media official asking him to talk about his day:

My feeling is I can’t believe it. You know, the hard work, the dedication, the drive, the tears knowing that I won — these microphones are awesome. Work on that for next year, boys.

It’s about five seconds of a press conference, but all of Bubba is right there. The emotion, gratitude, incredulity at his talent, and the moody bite. That’s Bubba and he may not be your favorite, but it’s great for entertainment (and content!) on and off the course and it’s good to have him back.

I spent the first two rounds, as you might expect, following Tiger’s every shot. I’m working through a longer item there and waiting to see what happens this week at Honda. But I was most encouraged by his wedges. Aside from his health, I think any residue from those dreaded chip yips had to be the biggest concern for this comeback.

It will always linger in the back of your mind, but it appears he’s buried them as best as one possibly can. His wedges were the most impressive part of his game in his 36 holes at Riv — from full shots to delicate chips and flops around the green. After his MC, his wedge game was the one thing he characterized as “fine.”

Everything else is still TBD or rusty. The wildness with the driver is still an issue, and he and Rory spent two full holes discussing it during walks up the fairway at the end of Friday’s round. When Tiger hit a 3-wood, especially early on Thursday, the results were much better. But the driver was missing both ways over two days — often right on Thursday and left on Friday, which he had no real explanation for other than “my cut was not cutting.”

The wild driver is the obvious thing people pounce on as Tiger’s weakness right now. We see him strolling off into parts unknown and having to hit dramatic recovery shots from precarious positions, and it’s the thing our eyes immediately dart to as the “not good” part of his game. And it’s not good. But Friday’s MC was also about the putter. Tiger was -2 in strokes gained putting in Friday’s round. It’s a small sample size, of course, but he missed everything and said after the round “I didn’t feel very good when I was warming up with my putting,” and it was “the first day that I felt bad with the putter this year.”

The wild driver is something we’ve watched for two events, and now there’s a poor taste in his mouth with the putter from his last round. Oh, and he also said he’s still not dialed-in with his irons. “One of my hallmarks of my whole career is I’ve always hit the ball pin high with my iron shots, and I have not done that.”

I would take hitting the ball pin high for like, three or four holes in one round in my life.

So there’s rust and imprecision and poor form through the bag, but nothing that’s alarming at this nascent point in the comeback. I think we’re still slotted somewhere on the scale between “what we expected” and “better than expected” with Tiger. Now he goes to the Honda Classic this week at Palm Beach Gardens, another place that can be quite inhospitable to imprecision and rust.

The vocal and sometimes overzealous crowds got a lot of play this week. Rory said he needed some Advil after playing with Tiger the first two days and estimated that he thought idiots in the massive Tiger galleries cost Woods two shots per tournament (or a half-shot per round).

Justin Thomas said it was “pretty wild” the first couple of days and then got “out of hand” at the end of his round on Saturday. And Tiger said it had cost him a lot of shots and even some tournaments over the years. All three were talking about it.

So the marquee trio this week clearly thought the crowds were disruptive. I didn’t really get that sense walking with them the first 36 holes. Of course they’re the ones who notice it most and where the impact of it is actually felt, not some tubby golf writer walking alongside them taking notes. There were definitely moments of idiocy. A construction worker on one of the $20-million or $30-million-something mansions looking down into the canyon golf course screamed during Tiger’s backswing on Thursday. That was bad.

But nothing seemed excessive or really out of the ordinary for me from walking with some of the biggest crowds at some of these big events. And maybe that’s the players’ point. It’s become status quo and that’s a problem.

Tiger’s wild driver obviously hurts him the most — we saw that in his strokes-gained numbers this week. But I think it has an underrated impact on his playing partners. Every time he hit a drive somewhere off the fairway, you’d get the usual cone of fans surrounding him. He’d often hit first to get back into play, and then it would just be madness as people scrambled to get back into position or up to the green. You’d often look up in the din and Rory or JT were just saying screw it and going ahead and hitting their approach shot.

One time after a crazy low-hooking rope Tiger hit under a tree branch, some big doofus just kept screaming “I cannot believe that!” over and over as loud as he could. It traveled across the entire hole, and Rory just decided to keep the pace moving and take his swing with the accompanying soundtrack. Whether it was Rory or JT playing next, this happened every time Tiger went wild off the tee and scrambled to get back into play.

We hear so much about the challenge of playing in the group ahead of Tiger, but this is where I felt the negative impact of playing with a Tiger gallery was most felt. It got to the point where with each wild drive, I was expecting Rory and JT to wince in frustration as much as Tiger.

In other sports, we often hear about the must-see venues. You have to go to Lambeau. You need to spend a Saturday night in Baton Rouge. You have to see a game at the Palestra or Hinkle or Cameron. Outside of that obvious one in Georgia, the PGA Tour does not have many annual recurring venues that are worth a pilgrimage.

Riviera is one and if you’re a diehard golf fan or just a casual golf watcher, it’s worth the trip. There’s obviously a lot to love about Riviera as a PGA Tour venue. The history and design, Los Angeles market, and views from the clubhouse get much of the run. Down in the canyon, it’s just a fantastic course for spectators at a professional golf tournament. It’s not on some enormous plot of land with houses lining every fairway. It’s nothing but golf holes coming and going in all directions, and it makes it so easy to see multiple things from one spot or jump from the front side to the back nine by just taking a few steps.

There’s so little of this station-to-station walking where you feel isolated. There’s really no spot on the course that truly feels remote. The corner with the sixth green and seventh tee occupies a spot that would be as close as it gets to “remote.” But even there you have the fantastic par-3 16th nearby that you can flex over to.

It’s the best spectator experience I think I have encountered in pro golf so far. I stood on the fourth tee on Thursday and watched

I mean, that’s just incredible viewing. The tee shot at the 18th often promotes a sexy-looking low cut shot. A tee ball into a beast of a redan needs no real hype. And I didn’t really have to move to watch it all. These kinds of crossroads exist throughout the course. It’s worth walking the entire course and following a group or two, but this is one of the great venues where it really makes sense to stop and watch in one spot for a while.

A few other, less serious, more amusing oddities from walking around Riviera for a few days.

The week did not come without some Monster disappointment. A friendly source on the ground told me he/she witnessed Joe LaCava pouring water into Tiger’s Monster bottle that he carries in his Monster bag. I saw him take a big swig late on Friday, and the liquid did appear to be more transparent than I’d hoped.

Makes you wonder if Friday’s low-energy limp to the finish could have been different.

There are many unfunny, unoriginal, and dumb things that come out of the crowd. But I still crack up every time I hear someone offer earnest coaching advice or affirmation to the best players in the world. I lost it when I overheard one guy seriously exclaim, “that’s the smart play there” to Tiger freaking Woods after he blasted out of a greenside bunker.

The people watching, as you might expect, were just fantastic over the course of Tiger’s two days. It was a mix of LA odds and ends, but the one guy I loved the most was wearing a Wheels Up hat and a SpaceX pullover. Just a big fan of all methods of private flight.

Pouring in a birdie putt never feels bad. But pouring in a birdie putt in an amphitheater full of a Tiger Woods gallery has to feel especially good. Thomas finished his Friday round with an impressive 3 at the 18th, igniting the crowd and putting some juice in his step as he closed out the day. The guy knows how to perform in an arena like that. It’s a simple little thing, but given the setting, it has to be among the best feelings one can have on the golf course.

For some unknown reason, John Ziegler was out following the Tiger group on Thursday. If you’re not familiar with him, well, it’s kind of hard to quickly explain who he is and what he’s done. David Foster Wallace once wrote a long profile of him during his political talk show days.

He makes documentaries that, uh, take some questionable stances. He moved to Alaska to be a Sarah Palin champion and make a documentary on her, then turned into a Palin critic. He worked to exonerate Joe Paterno. He once posted a YouTube video Zaprudering the hell out of Tiger’s drop at the 2013 Players.

Look, I have no grand point to make here other than I feel obligated to relay to you what I found interesting, weird, or amusing. Ziegler was following Tiger’s group inside the ropes and carrying a briefcase. I have no idea why he needed his briefcase (TrackMan unit perhaps?) out on the course, but I was fascinated.

Two enterprising fans were particularly interested in the marital status of Rory and Thomas. Once they found out Rory was married, one uttered, “Well Bryson is my No. 2.” Mine as well. Mine as well.