Alexander: Relocated Genesis Invitational means more than just golf

LA JOLLA – Early in the week, the sight of Genesis Invitational signage with the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop just looked weird. By Sunday afternoon, though, with a crowd at the top of the leaderboard, the season’s second PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines seemed like business as usual.

Inside the ropes, anyway.

These last several weeks, in Los Angeles particularly and throughout Southern California in general, have been anything but normal. And the Genesis Invitational was played on the Torrey Pines South course, rather than its usual home at Riviera, because the Pacific Palisades had been so ravaged by wildfires that normalcy was just not possible.

One benefit? This tournament, the tour’s third Signature Event of the season, became a vehicle for fundraising to help the affected areas in Pacific Palisades and Altadena recover.

The American Red Cross had ad time on Sunday’s CBS telecast. So did the California Rises effort, a partnership of Genesis, TGR Live (Tiger Woods’ company) and the PGA Tour, which will raise money to benefit the Red Cross, World Central Kitchen, the California Fire Foundation and the Genesis Inspiration Foundation. The auto company donated $8 million in tournament vehicles and cash contributions to the effort.

Riviera Country Club announced Thursday that it would donate $1 million to support fire recovery efforts in Pacific Palisades and has set up a fund through the California Community Foundation to raise additional money.

Additionally, the “Birdies for Good” initiative pledged $300 for each birdie and eagle during the four rounds, and $10,000 for a hole-in-one. Eventual winner Ludvig Aberg and Keegan Bradley had aces the last two days, accounting for $20,000 right there.

SoCal natives Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala are making their own contributions beyond that fund established by the tour. Morikawa, who finished 3-under and tied for 17th, is contributing $1,000 per birdie and $2,000 per eagle, which meant $20,000 this week for 16 eagles and two birdies. Theegala, a former Pepperdine star who also finished 3-under, is contributing $100 per birdie and $250 per eagle, and this week 14 of the former and one of the latter meant a $1,650 contribution.

“We’ve seen this too often,” Morikawa said during a pre-tournament interview session this week. “… Fires happen. People kind of forget and then you move on to the next cycle. I realize that’s how news and media works, but for how big of an impact Los Angeles has gone through with everything with the fires, you just have to keep creating awareness as much as you can.”

Aberg, who wound up winning the tournament by one shot over Maverick McNealy thanks to a 6-foot, 9-inch birdie putt on 18, added $6,000 to the “Birdies for Good” kitty with 19 birdies and one eagle over the four days, plus the $10,000 for his ace Saturday, technically also an eagle on the par-3, 140-yard third hole. The final total for the tournament from that fund, out of 845 birdies and 23 eagles, two of which were aces: $279,800.

Woods, the tournament’s host, appeared at the tournament site Sunday after spending time away while mourning the Feb. 4 death of his mother, Kutilda. Interviewed on CBS during the final round, Woods noted that in finding a replacement venue for this tournament it was important to find one as “iconic” as Riviera.

Torrey Pines, which has hosted two U.S. Opens – including the memorable 2008 Open when Woods, basically playing on one good leg, outlasted journeyman Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff – certainly qualifies. And, in fact, Sunday’s 18th hole on the South Course used the same pin position that was in play when Woods sank his winning putt on the tournament’s 91st hole on that playoff Monday in ’08. That iconic enough for you?

But this move was quite the task. Most of the courses considered as replacements already had tournament infrastructure in place – grandstands, hospitality areas, broadcast and other media facilities, and the like. In addition to its other advantages, Torrey Pines is a more convenient drive for L.A. golf fans than, say, PGA West at La Quinta, never mind the mileage between SoCal and Pebble Beach or Scottsdale.

But there were tickets to sell, credentials to issue, volunteers to bring in – which turned out to be a mix of some of the L.A. area people lined up for the Genesis and some of those locals who had worked the Farmers Insurance Open three weeks previously.

There were so many things to be done in those 3½ weeks, in fact, that tournament director Mike Antolini still hadn’t had the opportunity as of Sunday afternoon to take a deep breath and contemplate all of it.

“It’s been an interesting, I guess, three-plus weeks now,” Antolini said. “We haven’t had a time to really fully reflect on the operational transition because, frankly, we’ve been so focused on dedicating our time to the essential operations to make this week what it has been.

“It’s a showcase of the world’s best players inside the ropes, but outside the ropes it’s really epitomized … how a PGA tour event can impact a community.”

TGR Live is in the event business anyway, and Antolini said it was “uniquely positioned to relocate a golf tournament.”

But on a little more than three weeks’ notice? Imagine the marathon workdays leading up to it.

“I probably used extremes and said nothing is typical about the 2025 Genesis Invitational,” Antolini said. “But the reality of our kind of events and PGA Tour event cycles are (that) it is long days the closer you get to the event.

“So I would say that the past three-plus weeks have been different and interesting and unique. But at the end of the day, it’s a golf tournament … I would hope (the relocation process) would be minimized in the grand scheme of the circumstances that have us here at Torrey Pines.”

Torrey Pines is the 12th different course to host this tournament, and the first outside of greater L.A. It began in 1926 as the Los Angeles Open, at Los Angeles Country Club – which was the site of the 2023 U.S. Open – and it has been played, among other places, at Brookside Park in Pasadena, Hillcrest, WIlshire, Griffith Park, Valencia, Inglewood and two defunct country clubs: El Caballero in Tarzana and Fox Hills in Century City. It has been played 17 times at Rancho Park, the last in 1983,  and 60 times at Riviera, including all but three years (counting this one) since 1973.

Will it return to Riviera next February, for the tournament’s 100th anniversary?

“Absolutely,” Antolini said.

jalexander@scng.com