Signature Scroll<\/p>\n
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Highlights | Thursday | The Genesis<\/p>\n
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Change Text Size<\/p>\n
Written by Paul Hodowanic<\/p>\n
NOTE: Get the Signature Scroll \u2013 and the rest of PGA TOUR’s newsletters, including The Connect, Wire to Wire and The Early Card \u2013 directly in your inbox. Subscribe today!<\/a><\/p>\n LOS ANGELES \u2013 Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus never won at The Riviera Country Club. Neither have the two biggest stars of this generation \u2013 Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler. One looked ready to change that Thursday, the other looked lost …<\/p>\n Scheffler’s Thursday blues<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the weirdest phenomena of the PGA TOUR season thus far. Scottie Scheffler has been unquestionably the best golfer in the world from Friday through Sunday. Thursdays have been a completely different, confounding story. <\/p>\n For the third straight event, Scheffler stumbled out of the gates and gave himself a large deficit to try to climb out of. He nearly did at the WM Phoenix Open and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a sign of his greatness, finishing top five in both. He\u2019ll have a similar task again, 5-over through 10 holes when play was called Thursday evening at Riviera (he would finish with a 3-over 74 in Round 1). <\/p>\n Here\u2019s the stat as of Thursday evening: Scheffler is 2-under overall in first rounds this year (with a 9-under at The American Express doing a lot of heavy lifting). In the other three rounds, he\u2019s 55-under (an average of 65.5).<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s establish an important caveat: Scheffler was dealt a tough weather draw. He began his round just as wind gusts started to balloon over 30mph. That doesn\u2019t explain it away, though. Most of the field still had half their rounds to go when that weather rolled in, and his playing partner, Si Woo Kim, dealt with it admirably, 3-under when play halted.<\/p>\n So what\u2019s going on? Scheffler was clearly out of sorts, losing numerous shots to the right that cost him strokes. At the drivable par-4 10th, Scheffler chipped into a bunker from just off the green, an uncharacteristic mistake for one of the best short-game golfers in the world, then lipped out a short par putt.<\/p>\n If history is a guide, all will be fine on Friday. Scheffler might even flip the script in his final eight holes early in the morning. For now, though, it\u2019s the continuation of the most confusing trends in recent memory. <\/p>\n One more stat to send you on your way, this one from the always insightful Justin Ray: That was Scheffler’s worst 10-hole start to a PGA TOUR event. The next worst? The 2014 CJ CUP Byron Nelson. He was 4-over after 10. But he was a 17-year-old amateur. <\/p>\n \ud83d\udcfa Really cool look at Riviera here<\/a>. Rickie Fowler talked through every shot of his Wednesday practice round. A great way to understand the course and how players will play it this week.\ud83d\udcb2More than $1 million will be donated to wildfire recovery efforts this week. Merch is also available with 100% of proceeds going to toward the cause<\/a>. \ud83d\uddbc\ufe0f Compiled some really cool photos of Riviera<\/a> over the years. The course is celebrating its centennial. <\/p>\n McIlroy keeps big numbers at bay<\/p>\n *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Rory McIlroy’s Round 1 highlights from The Genesis<\/p>\n The big mistakes cost Rory McIlroy a chance to contend at AT&T Pebble Beach. He made three double bogeys and a triple bogey and lost by five strokes. <\/p>\n Those were non-existent Thursday, partly because it\u2019s harder to make those numbers at the landlocked Riviera, but also because he embraced the same conditions that hindered Scheffler. McIlroy said he\u2019s made significant strides in performing in high winds, in particular. He\u2019s added three-quarter swings with every wedge and iron to help him flight shots down. He\u2019s also relied on a low-trajectory tee shot he pulls out when he needs to navigate narrow or windy shots. He pulled it off in the teeth of the wind on the 12th. He did the same downwind on the difficult 18th. All in all, he made six birdies and one bogey to share the clubhouse lead at 5-under, one shot behind Aaron Rai (6-under through 16 holes).<\/p>\n \u201cI haven’t always had the skill set to excel in (conditions),\u201d he said. \u201cTo start to enjoy them and have the shots to succeed on days like this, that’s a really satisfying thing to be able to be, you know, nearly 20 years into a career and still feel like you’re getting better at some aspects of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n \ud83d\udedf Viktor Hovland led the field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green on Thursday (+3.5). He said it\u2019s validation for the work he\u2019s put in, which has included viral drills with pool floaties and resistance bands. \u201cWe’re not quite all there yet \u2026 but that was a huge step in the right direction.” He shot 2-under. \ud83d\ude2e Collin Morikawa said he\u2019s \u201cnever seen greens like\u201d Riviera\u2019s on Thursday. With the rain, they were extremely soft to hit into, yet still incredibly fast when putting. \u201cIt’s just purely hit and hope.\u201d\ud83c\udf2c\ufe0fThe conditions we were promised at Pebble Beach last week never came, but they were here Thursday afternoon. Gusts climbed well into the 30 mph range. The 12th through 16th were particularly difficult. They were the fourth, sixth, ninth and No. 1 hardest holes on the course, respectively. *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-11jnzpa>img,.css-11jnzpa>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-11jnzpa::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:66.66666666666666%;}]]> Feb 20, 2026<\/p>\n McIlroy handles rain, wind to make his move at The Genesis<\/a>Daily Wrap Up<\/a>![\"Rory](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771618990_169_image.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3H AGO 3 Min Read Signature Scroll *:not(style){overflow:hidden;position:absolute;top:0px;right:0px;bottom:0px;left:0px;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;justify-content:center;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;width:100%;height:100%;}.css-17ygvlf>img,.css-17ygvlf>video{object-fit:cover;}.css-17ygvlf::before{height:0px;content:””;display:block;padding-bottom:56.25%;}]]> Highlights | Thursday | The Genesis *:not(style)~*:not(style){margin-top:0.5rem;-webkit-margin-end:0px;margin-inline-end:0px;margin-bottom:0px;-webkit-margin-start:0px;margin-inline-start:0px;}]]> A Change Text…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-480521","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}