It’s time for one of the PGA Tour’s marquee events. 

This year, however, will be different than years past. 

Due to the recent Los Angeles-area wildfires, the Genesis Invitational will take place at Torrey Pines in San Diego, rather than Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. The Tour played the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey three weeks ago, with Harris English winning. 

The Genesis is the Tour’s third signature event of the season, and 72 players will try to take home part of the $20 million purse, with the winner collecting $4 million. It’s one of three signature events to feature a 36-hole cut (low 50 players and ties and any additional players within 10 strokes of the lead after two rounds). 

But most importantly, it will be a way to give back to the rebuilding Los Angeles community. 

“The fact that we were able to, with the city of San Diego, were able to stay within Southern California, with respect to the difficulties in L.A., I think it’s important that we were able to stay in Southern California because everyone who was born and raised out in Southern Cal can all relate to the fires,” tournament host Tiger Woods said. “It’s a difficult situation, and we want to be very sensitive to that. 

“I think because we’re in Southern California, I think we’re going to be able to raise more money for all the losses that have incurred.”

From its field, course, history, tee times and how to watch, here’s what you need to know for the 2025 Genesis Invitational. 

The field

Tiger Woods withdrew, but plenty of stars will still be teeing it up this week. 

Forty-six of the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking will tee it up, highlighted by world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and No. 3 Rory McIlroy. No. 2 Xander Schauffele is still recovering from a rib injury, and will not be playing. 

Besides Woods and Schauffele, the only players eligible but not playing are Alex Noren and Chris Kirk (each top 50 in the 2024 FedExCup standings). Jake Knapp replaced Woods and Mark Hubbard is taking Kirk’s spot in the field. 

World No. 5 Hideki Matsuyama is the defending champion. Having won the season-opening Sentry in record fashion, he is trying to become the Tour’s first two-time winner this year. 

The four sponsor exemptions include Rickie Fowler, Min Woo Lee, Gary Woodland and Jordan Spieth, who finished T4 last week in Phoenix in his second start since wrist surgery. 

Danny List was granted the Charlie Sifford Memorial Exemption and will make his Tour debut. Sifford was the first African-American to play on Tour and won the 1969 L.A. Open. List was sidelined for all of 2023 after a stress fracture in his back left him unable to swing. However, he returned in 2024, earning his 2025 DP World Tour via its Q-School. 

The course 

So far, Torrey Pines’s South Course has been the Tour’s hardest this season, with a scoring average of  73.685 (+1.685). 

The South Course is a 7,765-yard, par-72 with 82 bunkers, one water hazard, an average fairway width of 24-27 yards and an average green size of 5,000 sq. ft.

In 2024, the South Course was ninth hardest on Tour, with a scoring average of 72.40 (+.402). Its 505-yard par-4 12th hole was the Tour’s sixth toughest hole, averaging 4.406 (+0.406). 

“You either love this course or you don’t,” Keegan Bradley said last year. 

Torrey Pines has held the Farmers Insurance Open every year since 1968 and has also hosted two U.S. Opens (2008, 2021). 

This will be the first year since 1998 (and second since 1984) that the Genesis won’t take place at Riviera. In 2024, Riviera was the 19th toughest course on Tour with a scoring average of 70.104 (-0.896). 

Thirty-seven players who competed in the Farmers are teeing it up this week, including five who had top 10 finishes: English (1st), Sam Stevens (2nd), Andrew Novak (3rd), Sungjae Im (T4), Taylor Pendrith (T7). 

History: Babe’s monumental moment 

Babe Didrikson Zaharias was a one-of-a-kind athlete. 

Nicknamed after Babe Ruth, the Texan set four world records at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and is the lone male or female track and field athlete to win individual medals in separate running, throwing and jumping events. 

Then, roughly three years later, she took up golf. 

In January 1938, she became the first woman to compete against the men in a PGA event, teeing it up at the Los Angeles Open (now the Genesis). She missed the cut, but played that week with George Zaharias, a 296-pound former wrestler. The two got married later that year. 

She would again play alongside the men, and in 1945 she made the Los Angeles Open cut. Even though LPGA stars such as Annika Sorenstam, Michelle Wie West, Brittany Lincicome and Lexi Thompson have made PGA Tour starts, Didrikson Zaharias remains the only one to make the cut—80 years later.

Zaharias was one of the LPGA's founders in 1950 and finished her career with 41 LPGA wins and 10 major victories. 

In September 1956, she died of colon cancer at age 45. 

How to watch (all times EST)

  • Thursday: 4-8 p.m. (Golf Channel)
  • Friday: 4-8 p.m. (Golf Channel)
  • Saturday: 1-3 p.m. (Golf Channel); 3-7 p.m. (CBS)
  • Sunday: 1-3 p.m. (Golf Channel); 3-6:30 p.m. (CBS)

ESPN+ will have also nearly eight hours of featured coverage all four days, starting between 12:30-1:30 p.m. and ending at 8 p.m.

Round 1 and 2 tee times 


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Genesis Invitational Preview: Course, Field, History, Tee Times, How to Watch.

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