At the most recent edition of the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, in 2024, the brutish par-3 4th hole made the players squirm. For the week, the 230ish-yard hole played to a meaty stroke average of 3.204, making it the third hardest hole on the course. In the fourth round just 6 of 51 players hit the green in regulation, with many tee shots getting held up in the sticky kikuya grass fronting the green.
“Terrible” is how veteran pro Adam Schenk, after missing the cut by four, described the hole in a tweet in which he tagged tournament host Tiger Woods. “Tell them to grow poana [sic] short of 4 for the left 2/3 of green rewarding good shots & keep current grass short on right 1/3 of green.”
Two years later, the world’s best players are back at Riv (in 2025, the L.A. wildfires forced the tournament to relocate to Torrey Pines), and Schenk, who is not in the field this week, got half his wish. Changes have been made to the 4th hole — just not the kind of changes he’d lobbied for.
Instead of shortening or swapping out the grass to make the Redan-style green more accessible, the club has lengthened the hole by about 40 yards, meaning it can now play up to 270 yards, and repositioned the tee box well to the right of its original site. Riv said it made the changes to better align the hole with designer George Thomas’s original vision but the beefing up of an already stout test has raised the eyebrows of at least a few players, including world No. 2 Rory McIlroy, who characterized the new-look 4th as a “horrible change.”
Asked to expound, McIlroy said, “Like 15 percent of the field hit the green last time when it was played at its original yardage at 230. If you want it to be a 275-yard par-3, you have to change the apron leading up onto the green. It can’t be kikuyu, it has to be another type of grass that can help you run it onto the green because, again, in the right conditions, you try to fly that ball on the green with a 3-iron, it’s going to land — it’s going to finish up on the 5th tee box.”
The hole doesn’t have to play all stretched out, of course, and likely won’t on cool, damp days or when the wind is blowing in hard toward the players. As PGA Tour rules official Steve Rintoul told my colleague Jack Hirsh in 2024, “I suspect the players in the Genesis will see a bit of everything over the four days. However, the summertime events coming up at Riviera (Women’s U.S. Open, Olympics and the U.S. Open) will allow for firmer and warmer conditions where the ball played along the ground, chasing onto the green, will be more effective.”
Rintoul added, “As always we will evaluate the playability of the hole and gather player input on the design, but our usual strategy is to tip-toe into using major changes.”
So far that input hasn’t been especially positive. Collin Morikawa, who won at Pebble Beach last week, said Wednesday was his first day playing the retooled 4th and even from pushed-up tees he still needed to hit a 3-wood. “Hit and hope, I guess,” he said. “It’s too soft, unfortunately, to have a lot of control to say, man, I’m going to play a tight 5-iron and run it up. I think a lot of us play it left to chip uphill, but with a 3-wood in hand, that cart path on the left honestly comes into play. … I think it’s just a very long par-3. There’s not a lot of thought to it other than just kind of hitting the green and moving on, unfortunately.”
Jordan Spieth also offered a less-than-ringing endorsement of the hole, telling Golf Channel’s Brentley Romaine, “It’s the only weak spot on the course.” Other players weighed in from afar. Graeme McDowell, who won a U.S. Open up the coast at Pebble Beach, isn’t in the field but filed this observation on X: “Few holes that you would like to lengthen on this great course, but this wouldn’t be my first choice. Obsession with total yardage can destroy individual great holes.”
Riv’s 4th is now the longest par-3 on Tour, edging out the 265-yard 11th at Puntacana Resort. Still, both of those holes are relative mites compared to the par-3 8th at Oakmont, which played 289 yards at the U.S. Open last summer and drew this dig from Viktor Hovland: “I just think all the best par-3s are under 200 [yards]. You can maybe have it just over 200, but as soon as you start to take head covers off on par-3s, I just think it gets a little silly.”
Head covers will most assuredly be coming off at Riv’s 4th this week. Defending U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun played the hole Wednesday with a 3-wood, feeding his shot in from the front right of the green. His ball released to about six from the hole from where he missed his birdie try but made a stress-free par.
Easy . . . right?
“It’s Wednesday,” Spaun said after his round. “It didn’t matter really today.”
