VILLEGAS TAKES EARLY LEAD AT RIVIERA
Bubba Watson has no beef with Riviera.
Two years after he won the Northern Trust Open with a 6464 weekend, Watson got off to a solid start Thursday with seven birdies for a 5-under 66 that put him in a three-way tie for second with Chez Reavie and Luke List.
Camilo Villegas ran off four birdies in a row late in his round and challenged the course record until a bogey on his final hole left him with an 8-under 63 and the early lead. The first round was suspended due to darkness.
Rory McIlroy, in his American debut for 2016 and his first time at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, opened with a 67, along with University of Illinois senior Charlie Danielson.
“I just want to let everyone know that I love the golf course and I love the community,” Watson said with a grin. That was a reference to the abuse he took two weeks ago at the Phoenix Open, when he said he didn’t like the changes made to the golf course and was booed heavily on the 16th.
That’s not the case at Riviera, where the course seems to be as big of a star as the players.
“It’s all about hitting the right trajectories, hitting the right line and hopefully on certain pins, hitting the fairway so you can produce a little bit of spin,” Watson said. “It’s just a traditional, oldschool golf course that’s got a lot of history.”
It helped that rain arrived Wednesday afternoon and was steady through the night, stopping right about the time the tournament began. It still was enough to allow the greens to hold a little bit more than usual.
Reavie and List were bogeyfree, with List making birdies on all of the par 5s. Reavie was five shots out of the lead going into the final round at Pebble Beach last week until closing with a 77, though he saw enough from his game to not let that bother him.
McIlroy has no history at Riviera. He came over from Florida for the first time because of all he had heard about the golf course, and he hasn’t been disappointed.
McIlroy played the 307-yard 10th hole close to perfection, with a tee shot left of the green and a pitch to 5 feet. He followed with a birdie before settling into a steady diet of pars, with one mis- take from a tee shot into a deep bunker on the 15th hole.
The morning groups were helped slightly by the rain, however.
Riviera’s strength in recent years has been the firm, fast conditions. Balls that took big bounces on the poa annua greens were at least holding and spinning back.
“I hit the ball pretty well from tee to green,” McIlroy said. “Put myself out of position a couple of times, but with the way the conditions of the golf course were, it didn’t punish you as bad as if it would have been as firm as it was the last couple of days.”
Jordan Spieth, the world’s No. 1 player, opened with a 79.
Charles Howell III, the 2007 champion at Riviera, was in a group at 67. Charl Schwartzel shot a 68.
The surprise was Danielson, who won the collegiate qualifier on Monday and made his PGA Tour debut. He opened birdiebirdie, followed with a pair of bogeys and then settled into his round and made a pair of late birdies to reach 67.
“I just went out with no expectations and it worked out,” Danielson said.