PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA | Around noon on a sunshiny Thursday that the movie makers around this area couldn’t improve on with all of their wizardry, a hawk sat perched atop a Genesis Invitational sign built into the hillside between the famous Riviera clubhouse and the second green below.
The golden brown hawk, with a wingspan as wide as a driver is long, seemed to pose for photos as people making their way up and down the winding path paused and grabbed their phones.
A romantic might suggest it was Ben Hogan himself, the Hawk, whose success around this place is commemorated in a bronze bust near the putting green.
Probably not, but it was another little piece of magic at a place that has stood the test of time – no small feat in golf these days – and continues to evoke inspiration like few other places.
They have been playing professional golf events at Riviera for nearly a century, and this year the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational has signature status, an official designation as if it needed anything else with Tiger Woods as the event’s host.
This is a week to put aside the game’s current division and leave the discussion of what’s coming for another time. When something substantial develops, word will spread, but this is one of the biggest weeks on one of the best golf courses on the planet.
If they’re going to play a golf tournament around Valentine’s Day, they found the right spot in Riviera.
“I love this track and I love this event,” Adam Scott said pre-tournament, lacking only a box of chocolates to demonstrate his affection. “I’m lucky enough to have won it twice, and it’s my favorite event I play on tour.”
Here’s a nugget that stands the test of time: Lanny Wadkins set the tournament scoring record of 264 here in 1985, and it remains the longest-standing such record among current tour events.
Riviera sits in a basin-like setting just west of downtown Los Angeles, surrounded by high bluffs where the wealthy and the wealthier have homes. For those who can park close to the course, carpool lines slow traffic in the adjacent neighborhood early in the morning and again mid-afternoon, but looking out at Riviera, especially from behind the hilltop clubhouse, it’s easy to understand why the hawk paused there.
It’s a minor nuisance for a rare pleasure.
“I’ll tell anyone that asks, I think it’s one of the best if not the best design we play all year. It’s one of my favorite golf courses, this and Royal Melbourne, of all the golf courses I’ve ever played,” said Patrick Cantlay, whose opening 64 set the early pace despite a strange bogey on the gorgeous, sycamore-framed par-3 16th hole.
Cantlay’s tee shot on the 166-yard hole hit one of the white, skeletal-looking trees and dropped down almost 60 yards short of the green, leaving him little choice but to chunk his second shot into a bunker and save a bogey from there.
When a reporter observed that he had never seen such a short tee shot on that hole, Cantlay said, “Neither have I.”
Who says he doesn’t have a sense of humor?
While the lead belonged to Cantlay, the day and perhaps the rest of this week belonged to Woods.
When Woods showed up on the practice tee Thursday morning, easy to find in his white pants and off-white sweater, seeing him move from one area to another was like those videos of Taylor Swift being escorted into football games.
There was an almost magnetic pull to the 82-time PGA Tour winner not just because he was making his first official start since the Masters last year but because of who he is and what he has done. He’s 48 now, with his right ankle and a portion of his spine fused, but he still commands attention wherever he goes.
When Woods showed up on the practice tee Thursday morning, easy to find in his white pants and off-white sweater, seeing him move from one area to another was like those videos of Taylor Swift being escorted into football games. A part of the world moved with him.
Woods birdied the first hole, a par-5 in name only, then scattered some good and not so good across his scorecard.
“A lot of good and a lot of indifferent,” is how he described his 1-over-par 72 which put him in danger of missing the cut (low 50 and ties, or anyone within 10 strokes of the lead), which he pushed to have in this 70-player event.
The polish is missing at the moment. Woods has struggled with the quick pace of Riviera’s greens and conceded that he felt rusty and nervous Thursday.
Physically, he looked better than he has since his auto accident three years ago, though he did deal with back spasms late in his round, an occasional annoyance from his back surgeries.
“Because my back’s fused,” Woods said matter-of-factly when asked to explain the cause of his ailment.
It was a spasm, Woods said, that led to an unmentionable second shot at the 18th hole.
“Oh, definitely, I shanked it,” Woods said, before detailing how he used the club – an 8-iron – to punch hook his third shot through a narrow opening to the green to minimize the damage.
While Cantlay and playing companion Jordan Spieth fared better, making 14 birdies between them, Woods spent his first official day back with his buddies Justin Thomas and Gary Woodland.
With the sun shining and a cool breeze off the nearby Pacific arriving later in the day, it was a Thursday that felt a little different, not just because Tiger was back but because Riviera was flashing its timeless charm again.
As for the hawk, after posing for a while, it took flight, doing a lazy circle above the 18th green, wings spread wide, taking it all in on a good day to do it.