Adam Scott wins the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, for real this time

Fifteen years after being denied a PGA Tour title at Riviera because of rain, Adam Scott ended a nearly four-year winless drought at the Genesis Invitational

Adam Scott promises he still has the trophy from the Nissan Open in 2005 and got the first-place prize money that went with it. But, for the past 15 years, that tournament has been missing from his official PGA Tour resume.

Torrential rains flooded Riviera Country Club, located just outside Los Angeles, that entire week. Tournament organizers tried to get in a third-round on Monday but the course was too wet. So, instead, the two 36-hole leaders, Scott and Chad Campbell, played a sudden-death playoff to determine the winner. Scott won on the first extra hole, but because the event only lasted two rounds, it’s not considered an official PGA Tour win.

The title of “official” winner at Riviera, a course he admits is his favorite to play on tour, continued to elude the now 39-year-old Aussie until a spectacular display of poise and composure on Sunday at the tournament now known as the Genesis Invitational.

Scott shot a one-under round of 70 to finish the tournament at 11-under, two ahead of Sung Kang, Scott Brown, and Matt Kuchar. But an easy win this was not, as “Hogan’s Alley” lived up to its reputation in flustering the game’s top players.

Scott wasn’t immune from the course’s treachery. Beginning the round in a three-way tie for the lead with Kuchar and Rory McIlroy, he bogeyed the fourth hole, then made double-bogey at the fifth after his chip shot to the left of the green came up short and rolled back toward him.

If he was bothered by this change in fortune, however, he didn’t show it. Instead, his attitude the rest of the round matched his silky smooth swing. He rebounded by making a downhill 17-footer for birdie at the par-three sixth, then converted a big breaking right-to-left 12-foot putt at the 13th to go up by two shots. Then on the 15th came the shot he looked back on afterward as the shot that most helped him win the tournament.

His approach shot to the par-four plugged in the greenside bunker to the right of the green. His third flew over the green and into the rough, leaving him little room to work with if he hoped to get close to the pin tucked in on that side of the putting surface. Scott calmly surveyed the situation and figured out that a flop shot was his best play.

“I stood there and I wanted to maybe bump it into the fringe, but realistically it was going to 45 feet past, probably. I thought, well, you could maybe win the tournament if you hit a great flop shot here so I thought I might as well just go for it,” he said following the tournament. “I had a little bit of that kind of mindset, not just today but the whole week, of, not careless, but what do I got to lose kind of thing going.”

Scott’s fourth shot landed softly on the green and rolled to within five feet, allowing him to salvage a bogey and sole possession of the lead. He increased his lead back to two with another chip shot at the par-five 17th over a bunker that came to rest 10 feet away, a putt he rolled in for birdie and a comfortable lead walking down the 18th.

Scott’s victory this week wasn’t pre-ordained. He arrived at Riviera having not teed up at a PGA Tour event in more than three months. His last victory came at a course, Doral, that doesn’t play host to the tour anymore and a tournament, the WGC-Cadillac Championship in 2016, that no longer exists in that form. He hadn’t played anywhere in the world since winning the Australian PGA Championship on home soil in December, a week after competing for the International team at the Presidents Cup.

Other contenders weren’t as fortunate as Scott was on Sunday. McIlroy, playing his first tournament since reclaiming the No. 1 spot in the Official World Rankings, followed Scott by making a triple-bogey at the fifth. But, unlike Scott, he never recovered, missing makeable birdie putts at the eighth, ninth, and tenth before slamming his fist into the flagstick in frustration. He shot a two-over 73, his worst final-round score since the Wells Fargo Championship last May, and fell into a tie for fifth, three behind Scott.

Then there was Tiger Woods, who combined the pursuit of his record-breaking 83rd PGA Tour victory with his duties as tournament host this week. Riviera is the course he made his debut at as a 16-year-old in 1992. But the course has never been friendly to him, and this week was no different.

Woods finished at 11-over, in last place among the 68 players to make the cut and his worst 72-hole score to par since the Memorial in 2015. He eagled his opening hole of the tournament on Thursday to spark hopes of a Tiger roar but went down with a whimper, three-putting five times including a four-putt for double-bogey from 18 feet on Saturday. Woods has now played at Riviera 13 times in his career and never won, his longest losing streak at a single course by far.

The 44-year-old Woods looked slow and sluggish all week. But it was another player who will hit 40 later this year and has spent the better part of 20 years competing against Woods that was able to master Riviera’s oddities. Scott succeeded where McIlroy, Woods, and so many others failed on Sunday, and for that he has a trophy to take home. And this time it counts.