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The Genesis Invitational 36-hole scoring record fell on Friday at Riviera Country Club. While Cameron Young (-14), the man currently occupying second-place, broke the previous mark, he would be outdone just minutes later by Joaquin Niemann.
The overnight leader began the day in a flurry as he converted an eagle opportunity on the Par-5 opener before connecting from 15-feet for another par-breaker on No. 2. Tacking on six additional birdies against just one bogey on the drivable Par-4 10th, the young Chilean matched his first-round effort.
Carding back-to-back rounds of 8-under 63, Niemann sits at 16-under and two-strokes clear of his closest pursuer, Young. In a zone us weekend warriors can only dream of, the 23-year-old understands that despite his first two rounds, he is far from home.
Saying, “There’s still a lot of golf to go. There’s 36 more holes to go, so a lot of things can happen there. Yeah, just try to not think about it, who’s going to be up there with me or who’s going to be coming from behind, just try to worry about my game, try to worry about my shots and I think it should be all right.”
While Young’s name is directly beneath Niemann’s on the leaderboard, there may be a few others that creep into the front runner’s mind. As a trio of U.S. Ryder Cup team members in Justin Thomas (-11), Jordan Spieth (-9), and Collin Morikawa (-8) are within arm’s reach.
All possessing the ability to make up ground in a blink of an eye, we need to only look back to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and last year’s PLAYERS Championship to find sufficient evidence. While our heart and pocket books are with Niemann, we will head into the weekend hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.
Which is essentially what happened in the second round as it may be time to ask for Thursday nights off. Honestly, just Thursdays in general as we continue to fall flat with no help in sight. Awaiting word from my direct superior, we will soldier on and attempt to right the wrongs from Round 2.
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Updated Odds to Win (Odds Via PointsBet Sportsbook):
+120: Joaquin Niemann
+300: Justin Thomas
+650: Cameron Young
+1000: Jordan Spieth
+1200: Collin Morikawa
+1800: Adam Scott
+2800: Viktor Hovland
+3000: Cameron Smith
+9000: Marc Leishman
+10000: Max Homa
+12500: Maverick McNealy, Russell Knox, Scottie Scheffler
+15000: Cameron Tringale, C.T. Pan, Sungjae Im, Rory McIlroy
+20000: K.H. Lee, Matt Jones, Peter Malnati, Sebastian Munoz, Xander Schauffele
Round 3 Plays:
Joel Dahmen (+175) over Cameron Champ and Rickie Fowler at BetMGM (1.00 unit):
Oozing confidence, he posted on Twitter Friday evening, “I could scramble with myself for 2 days and never get to -16.” In all seriousness, the way in which Dahmen has been playing all season has gone a bit underappreciated. In the mix at the beginning of the final back-nine at Pebble Beach, he has since made waves in Phoenix.
Sitting at even-par through 36-holes, Dahmen has yet to effectively take advantage of his scoring opportunities at Riviera. With only one birdie thus far on the Par-5s, Friday’s round saw the 34-year-old lose more than 3-strokes with the putter in hand.
Currently 15th in SG: Off-the-Tee, 38th in SG: Approach, and 28th in SG: Around-the-Green, the rest of his game has been good enough to warrant a better result. If able to breakeven or sneak into the positive on the greens, it should allow him to get to a few under-par in Round 3.
Which may be all he needs against Champ and Fowler as both have struggled in 2022. Carrying this form or lack there of into this week, the California natives have not been able to get much going outside of Champ’s length off-the-tee. With Champ ranking outside the top-60 in SG: Putting and SG: Approach and Fowler outside the top-40 in each Strokes Gained metric, Dahmen makes for the play.
Si Woo Kim (+180) over Russell Henley and Robert MacIntyre at DraftKings (1.00 unit):
Kim has been stellar in 2022, garnering results of T-11, T-11 and T-26 in the Lower 48. With a chance to add to this list, the South Korean currently sits at 4-under courtesy of his tee-to-green prowess. Ranking 7th in SG: Off-the-Tee, 28th in SG: Approach, and 24th in SG: Around-the-Green, Kim has the potential to explode (one way or another) on Saturday.
Playing the Par-5s in 1-under in both of his first two rounds, there is some room for improvement as he has been riddled with 3-putts and short misses on the greens. Improving slightly between Rounds 1 and 2, I expect for him to gain strokes with the putter on Saturday as he has done in 8-of-10 previous rounds at Riviera prior to this week.
If the case, Henley and MacIntyre may be in trouble despite both putting forward solid efforts on Friday. Signing for scores of 5-under and 4-under respectively, both gained north of 2-strokes on the greens in their second rounds. Never known to be their strong suit, between the Scotsman’s inabilities off-the-tee at the moment and the American’s lack of sharpness tee-to-green, Kim has a path to pay dirt in Round 3.
2/3-Balls YTD: -6.75 units, -23.79%
Total YTD: +37.76 units, +73.34%
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