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LOS ANGELES — Adam Scott has another victory at Riviera, and this time it counts. Scott survived a calamitous Sunday with just enough clutch putts — for birdie, par, even a bogey — and closed with 1-under 70 for a two-shot victory in the Genesis Invitational. Related: Leaderboard | Scott starves himself of competition to stay hungry The victory comes 15 years after Scott won a playoff at Riviera that didn’t count as official because rain shortened the tournament to 36 holes. He earned every bit of this victory, his 14th on the PGA TOUR and 29th worldwide. Nearly a dozen players had a chance to win. Five players had a share of the lead at some point. Riviera was such a strong test that everyone made mistakes, including Scott. He went long off the fifth green, had a flop shot come back to his feet, putted the next up the hill and made double bogey. But he bounced back with a slick, scary 18-foot birdie putt on the par-3 sixth to regain a share of the lead, and he never trailed the rest of the way. Rory McIlroy was tied for the lead when he went long on the fifth, took two flop shots to get on the green and then compounded the error with a three-putt triple bogey. McIlroy never recovered. His tee shot on the par-3 sixth went on the wrong side of the bunker in the middle of the green, leading to another bogey. He closed with a 73 and tied for fifth. Harold Varner III, looking for his first PGA TOUR victory, was tied for the lead until he tried to hammer a 3-wood on the reachable 10th hole and chunked it so bad it barely reached the fairway, traveling a mere 129 yards. That led to double bogey, and he made bogey on the par-5 11th to fall out of contention. His day ended by missing a 3-foot par putt that gave him a 74 to finish out of the top 10. Tiger Woods had his problems, too, but he was never in contention. Woods played a five-hole stretch late in his round at 5 over and shot 77 to finish last among the 68 players who made the cut. It was the first time Woods has finished last alone since the Memorial in 2015. “Good news, I hit every ball forward, not backwards, a couple sideways,” Woods said. Matt Kuchar, who started the final round tied with Scott and McIlroy, birdied the par-5 opening hole and didn’t make another until the 17th when it was too late. He shot 72 and tied for second with Sung Kang (69) and Scott Brown (68). The clincher for Scott was his 10-foot birdie putt on the par-5 17th that gave him a two-shot margin, and when he knocked in his par putt on the 18th, he stood back and thrust his right fist in the air.  Scott finished at 11-under 273 for his first PGA TOUR title since the World Golf Championships event at Doral in 2016. “I’m stoked with this,” Scott said. “It’s a big step, whatever point in my career I’m at. I haven’t won for three years. This feels very special.” It was his second straight victory — he last played three days before Christmas and won the Australian PGA — and takes him to 16th in the FedExCup standings.  Hideki Matsuyama made the cut on the number and finished three shots behind in a tie for fifth with McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa and Joel Dahmen. Homa and Dahmen were in the mix late, but Homa caught a plugged lie in the bunker on the par-3 16th and made bogey to stop his threat, and Dahmen missed the 18th green to the left and failed to save par. Scott saved par on No. 12 with a 10-foot putt. He seized control with a 12-foot birdie putt on the 13th. And when he got in big trouble with his approach into a buried lie in the sand on the 15th, he got up-and-down from the other side of the green with a 5-foot putt to escape with bogey. This was a long time coming on the PGA TOUR, and it came on his favorite course on the PGA TOUR.

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OVERVIEW It seems every year we expect more from Rickie Fowler. The standards we hold for him are far and above many others but the reality is a body of work that has four PGA TOUR titles — including THE PLAYERS Championship — along with four additional worldwide wins is nothing to sneeze at. We can also judge Fowler away from the course where he is clearly a class above most. Always at the forefront of how to treat fans and charities, Fowler has been nothing but great for the game of golf. So if we are to expect more from Fowler, where will it come from? Consistency? Well, he’s made the FedExCup Playoffs in all nine of his PGA TOUR seasons, with 43rd his worst finish. He’s made the TOUR Championship five times. The majors? Perhaps this is what we crave given Fowler has nine top 10s (13 top 14s) in the majors during his career without a win. He was runner-up last year at the Masters where he’s had four top-12 finishes in the last five seasons … perhaps this will be the year. Now 30, Fowler has hit the meat of his career. He is no longer part of the youth brigade on TOUR. We expect it will kick start another impressive chapter for the former young gun – much like what was seen from Adam Scott. Scott spent his 20s winning tournaments, including the PLAYERS, but when the new decade hit, his intensity lifted and a major win and trip to world no.1 followed. Last season, Fowler was winless on the TOUR (albeit he did win the 2017 Hero World Challenge) but did have two runner-ups and he had to deal with an oblique injury. The fall series provided decent results in Las Vegas (T4) and Mexico (T16) and he was fifth in his title defense in the Bahamas, meaning he hits the new year with some form. — By Ben Everill Click here to see who else made the Top 30 list. BY THE NUMBERS FEDEXCUP UPDATE Current 2018-19 position: 39th Playoff appearances: 9 TOUR Championship appearances: 5 Best FedExCup result: 4th in the 2014-15 season SHOTLINK FUN FACT Rickie Fowler has recorded two rounds of 63 in his last 24 rounds played — after recording two rounds of 63 or better in his first 730 rounds played on the PGA TOUR. INSIDER INSIGHTS PGATOUR.COM’s Insiders offer their expert views on what to expect from Rickie Fowler in 2019. TOUR INSIDER: Plenty of players would kill for Fowler’s resume but yet still we constantly expect more from this prodigious talent. Now in his 30s, the time has come for a renewed focus on the big events. With comfort in his life, he needs to feel some discomfort with his results and double down on his commitment. We expect he will. — By Ben Everill FANTASY INSIDER: He’s so fine, he blows our minds. Every draft leaguer would salivate if he fell to this position in his or her draft. The knocks are obvious – “only” four PGA TOUR victories and still without a title in a major – but let the mainstream narrative criticize him for that. You know better. You understand that he’s going to antagonize the top of the leaderboard often enough to warrant one plunge after another. His consistently strong record speaks for itself and he’s been bettered in the all-around ranking by only four golfers in the last two completed seasons combined. — By Rob Bolton EQUIPMENT INSIDER: Fowler recently made equipment headlines by putting a game-improvement long iron into play at the 2018 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where he finished T4. The 4-iron is Cobra’s new King F9 Speedback iron, made for maximum forgiveness and distance. Fowler says he uses the iron as a weapon off the tee. As for the rest of his irons, Fowler employs a custom set of King MB Forged irons with tungsten weights added to the sole and toe of the club; his custom irons are so popular that Cobra recently released a retail version of the irons in a mixed set of CB/MB irons. Fowler also has switched into the new King F9 Speedback driver; he plays it at 43.5 inches, with a Graphite Design Tour AD-IZ shaft. — By Andrew Tursky STYLE INSIDER: Nobody can shake up the golf fashion scene quite like Fowler. He has the unique ability to go outside the box with fresh and creative looks while also possessing the thoughtfulness to respect the traditions of the game. He continues to use his style and modern take on golf apparel to bring a new generation of players to the fairways. At this point, we should expect the unexpected from Fowler. Let’s sit back and enjoy his fashion statements in the new year. — By Greg Monteforte

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Collin Morikawa and Viktor Hovland have teamed up this week at the 2022 Zurich Classic in New Orleans. The young superstars combine for only 49 total years of age (Morikawa is 25 years old, and Hovland is 24 years old), but they already have eight PGA TOUR victories between them (Morikawa has five, and Hovland has three). With Morikawa currently ranked No. 2 in the Official World Golf Rankings, and Hovland ranked No. 5, the Morikawa-Hovland duo is sure to be both a fan favorite — and a betting favorite to win the event, too. While neither player has made any major changes to their equipment setups in the last few months, each have recently made one minor tweak: Hovland has changed into a modified Ping G425 LST driver, and Morikawa changed the weight of his TaylorMade TP Collection Juno putter. Ahead of the 2022 Zurich Classic, GolfWRX.com spoke to both players to gain further insight about why they made their respective gear changes. Viktor Hovland Leading up to the Masters, Hovland was using a Ping G425 LST 9-degree driver head, which has a relatively flat lie angle to influence a fade bias. Hovland, however, who already plays a natural cut shot, noticed he was struggling to draw the ball. To help combat the issue, Hovland and Ping Tour rep Kenton Oates experimented with different loft and lie angle settings. The two eventually settled on a setting in his Ping G425 LST 9-degree head that shifted the lie angle upright by 2 degrees. All things being equal, a more upright lie angle will typically help golfers draw the ball, whereas a flat lie angle will influence a fade. According to Hovland, the upright driver setting also matched up better with the lie angles on his Ping i210 irons, helping him achieve more consistency throughout the set. ”We had a hard time drawing the driver, because it was too flat,” Hovland told GolfWRX.com at the 2022 Zurich Classic on Tuesday. “I have pretty low hands at impact, so we figured it’d be easier to make it more upright so I didn’t have to work as hard to draw it. When I do draw it, with that current setting, I tend to draw my irons too much. We just kind of matched it up to the rest of the set.” While many PGA TOUR players would be concerned using an upright driver, since they tend to guard against a left miss, Hovland doesn’t worry as much about missing to the left. “Most of the time when I’m playing well, it’s not going left too much,” Hovland said. Collin Morikawa You may not think five grams is a lot of weight, but for Morikawa, it can make a huge difference in feel on the greens. Typically, Morikawa uses a TaylorMade TP Collection Juno putter with 2.5-gram weights in the heel and toe portions of the sole. When he plays on relatively slower green complexes, however, he says he wants something a bit heavier. Ahead of The 2021 Open Championship, which Morikawa won, he replaced the 2.5-gram weights on his putter with 7.5-gram weights. Ahead of the Zurich Classic, he’s doing something similar by replacing the 2.5-gram weights with 5-gram weights. Although the change only equates to 5 grams of additional overall head weight, it’s significant for Morikawa, who’s going from the lightning fast Augusta National greens to the relatively slower TPC Louisiana surfaces. “I just added a little more weight to the putter,” Morikawa said on Monday at the 2022 Zurich Classic. “For me, it’s what I do on slower greens, like what I did at The Open. Instead of trying to hit it harder, or do something different, it just matches my feel a little better, and helps me work my way from fast greens to slow greens.” For amateur golfers, take this as a lesson to not underestimate the power of just a few grams. Adding or subtracting weight, especially in certain areas, can drastically change both performance and feel. If you’re using a putter that has interchangeable weights, we recommend messing around with different configurations to see what feels best for you, or consult with a professional fitter to get dialed in.

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