Genesis Invitational CHEATSHEET: Bets, Picks, Weather, DraftKings Notes
Genesis Invitational CHEATSHEET: Bets, Picks, Weather, DraftKings Notes
Wednesday at 8pm ET I’ll taking any questions you may have and run through the latest news. See ya there.
LIVE at 8pm ET: Genesis Q&A 🔴 Betting, Fantasy Golf Questions
2026 Genesis Invitational Quick Bets
Rory McIlroy +1650
Harris English +5500 (With 3 Places)
Matt Fitzpatrick +6000 (With 3 Places)
Sepp Straka +7500 (With 3 Places)
BOMBS
Jaosn Day +9000 (With 3 Places)
Shane Lowry +11000 (With 3 Places)
Corey Conners +20000 (With 3 Places)
LPGA
Jeeno Thitikul +375
KEYNA
Njoroge Njonge Kibugu +70000 (8 Places)
KENYA FIRST ROUND LEADER
Njoroge Njonge Kibugu +20000 (5 Places)
After Geoff inquired about the Each Way (3 Places) market on Monday, I got Alex Blickle to run the numbers and report on the Tuesday show. Since, you know, he’s smart unlike Geoff and I.
Alex discovered the Top 3 each way bet is actually a lot more +EV than anyone realized once he ran simulations. He explains it in more detail on the show if you want to hear more, but these are the results in the different markets for players this week. As you can see, the boost given to the outright odds for each player makes this type of bet more profitable in the long term while the equity you give up moving from 5 places to 3 places isn’t actaully all that substantial. Of course, you actaully need to win a few of these bets to realize the EV. They always forget to mention that part.
So, you can see, I went Rory and a lot of deeper odds this week with the Top 3 out on all of them. Jason Day was the final add last minute…
2026 Genesis Invitational Picks
Rory McIlroy — Rory allowed five or so holes to completely sink his chances at Pebble Beach. When Rory is losing strokes driving and putting in the same event chalk that up to a couple brain farts. His approach play, however, one of the best of the week. At RIV, Rory’s driver will transform back into the weapon to dominate off the tee, being a longer course, while his putting will likely bounce back since he’s been one of the best putters on TOUR over the past two years (+0.35/per round). After finally picking up his Augusta win, to go along with Quail Hollow and Bay Hill, Riviera is the last of similar tracks he’s yet to take down.
Harris English — Tough to go too far down the board at signature event when the books have compressed all the odds, so English is the man for me. While nothing seems particular different about his game in 2026, the stats reveal an incredible leap in his driving year-over-year. 16 rounds is a pretty small sample, yet English is gaining almost a stroke per round off the tee, second of all players to Scottie Scheffler. That’s +0.75 SG:OTT per round more on average than his last year and a half. While his irons have dipped a bit, in his two starts where he was forced to hit longer irons (like at RIV) he’s been in the positives.
Matt Fitzpatrick — Fresh off the the best approach week of career, Fitz is now crushing both driving and iron play to kick off the season. Problem is, he hasn’t been able to chip or putt; two of his historic strengths. While it’s possible his ball striking reverts to non-elite level, in the off chance he can keep it up, and sees his short game return to normal, then we have someone who will be neat the top of the leaderboard. If you’re in Canada, outside Ontario, you can get a special boost on Matt Fitzpatrick to +4000.
Sepp Straka — This makes it three weeks in a row for me and Straka. His irons faltered in both weekend rounds on the front nine only to rebound nicely each time on his way in leading to a T2. He’s not the typical profile because of his lack of distance, but the key thing was seeing him actually gain strokes with his putter last week. In fact, he gained across the board. Straka sits 4th in the field in SG: T2G in 2026.
Jason Day — Day’s approach play had been trending towards elite levels before swinging completely the other way at Pebble Beach (-3.54). Despite failing as a popular pick at Torrey, Day gained an impressive +4.3 strokes on approach (in only 3 measured rounds). The driver failed him. I’ll give him a pass on his irons as he’ll be hitting most of his approaches from a completely different bucket of distances at RIV, so we hold our noses and hope it’s the zig of his current zig-zag driving. While certainly not near the best drivers on TOUR, Day has seemingly become an every other week great, either gaining or losing a ton.
Stats & Research Tools Powered by the Rabbit Hole from Betsperts Golf
If the driver shows up for him this week and he can build off the early season iron play, while paying forward his excellent ability to chip on these tricky green complexes, maybe we have a runner if you squint hard enough. In the past five years, no player who has played more than two rounds at Riviera has gained as many strokes around the green per round as Day. Likely why he has back-to-back Top 10s at this venue.
Around the Green Leaders at Riviera cc Since 2020
Shane Lowry — Like Straka, Lowry lacks distance off the tee, but the Irishman always seems to thrive on these more demanding, classical tracks. He was excellent in the ball striking department at Pebble, picked up a T3 in Dubai at the end of January, and was solid here the last time he played RIV in 2023. That year he finished 12th T2G and was hampered by terrible putting. Something which has historically swung year-to-year for players on these greens.
Corey Conners — I have no faith Conners will actually do anything this week, but I’m just buying low on this crazy long number in case he remembers what he’s supposed to do well. His ball striking was fine at the Sony Open, and we’re judging his slide in stats based on six bad rounds. We’ve seen him spike at Bay Hill, Augusta and Quail Hollow in the past, and Riviera tends to see players in no form pop up out of nowhere as long as their skills match.
2026 Genesis Invitational H2Hs
I’m not normally a big H2H matchup guy, but I was poking around in the market at Coolbet while talking to Keith on Wednesday’s show and found three I really liked. So, naturally, I talked to Coolbet and got them to put al three together and boost up the odds. If you’re in Canada, outside Ontario, you can get this boost under the PME Exclusives Tab
Get the PME Boosts and a deposit BONUS at Coolbet
2026 Genesis Invitational HOT LINKS
2026 Genesis Invitational FINAL Bets, Tiger Stories & One-and-Done
2026 Genesis Invitational DraftKings Picks & Each Way Betting Data
2026 Genesis Invitational Research, Sleepers & Course Breakdown
2026 Genesis Invitational Weather
There has been a lot more rain than usual in the Los Angeles area both this winter and this week. In fact it looks like it will continue sprinkling on Thursday and being some wind along with it. Not sure if this is enough to halt play, but since the field is only 72 players, playing in threesomes for the first two rounds, it should affect everyone pretty evenly. There’s less than a five-hour gap between the first and last group Thursday so on either pole there could be a slight advantage to the later set if play isn’t delayed and they get to beat up on a softer course even in slightly higher winds. It really shouldn’t affect your process too much as most of the golfer you want to pick are going off later anyway. Of the 10 highest projected owned players on DraftKings, only No. 7, Jake Knapp (Projected 16.80%) is teeing off in the first seven groups.
The rest of the week forecasts as great golf conditions with almost no wind. Kinda cold, but nothing extreme.
Windtower: Century City
2026 Genesis Invitational Tee Times
2026 Genesis Invitational DraftKings
Alex Blickle and I broke down the field from a DK perspective, made lineups, and, once again, started with building Scottie Scheffler linueps. This week (IMO) it’s tougher to make these sort of linueps work, for a few reasons:
Fewer players to actually chose from. (72 players from 80 Players)
There’s a cut line (Top 50 & Ties + all players within 10 strokes), so you’re not guaranteed all four rounds from the scrub players.
Riviera is far moe demanding of an overall game than Pebble Beach so bottom end players who can run hot wedges and putters can’t compete here as easy as they could last week.
This is being reflected in Scheffler’s projected ownership. Now, there’s a chance this is way off, but it’s trending to be by far his lowest level in some time…
Stats & Research Tools Powered by the Rabbit Hole from Betsperts Golf
If you do want to make some Scheffler builds, there are a few $6,000 players I’d feel comfortable with at RIV taking a chance on…
Sam Stevens
Stevens’ off-the-tee profile may translate better to Riviera than some of the alternatives in this price range, particularly compared to players who bleed strokes with the driver. Fairly good with his long irons too.
Michael Kim
Rather than being a target based on upside, Kim is more a functional piece in roster construction, a player who allows you to complete a stars-and-scrubs lineup without completely sacrificing the ability to finish four rounds. While he’s been struggling off the tee, a lot of that is three balls OB on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach. There’s more room to miss at Riviera without penalty, and Kim may able to save himself from too many crooked numbers with his elite short game, especially from the sand.
Plus, Kim has been one best of players from the rough 150+ yards and out so far in 2026. Almost 75% of approach shots will come from that distance this week.
Stats & Data Powered by the Rabbit Hole Tool from Betsperts Golf
Ryan Fox
Fox is long off the tee and has started to play better the past two weeks. As someone who has popped in majors over the past two years, paying off a cheap price at a US Open style course is certainly doable.
Rico Hoey
Hoey’s is a part of that small subset of cheap players who could be rotated through as the final piece in optimized lineup constructions. Hoey’s ball striking is elite, and a lucky week around the greens could be enough to propel him up the leaderboard.
Andrew Novak
Novak is just too cheap at $6,300. He’s never played on these greens, but Poa Annua is the only surface he gains strokes on with his putter. He’s T2G was fine at Pebble and his iron game was second in the field three weeks ago at Torrey Pines.
LINEUP GENERATOR
Oh, the Fantasy National Linuep Builder is back up and running . I forgot how much I missed it.
