Scottie Scheffler’s Historic Top-10 Streak Ends at Riviera After Dramatic Sunday
scottie Scheffler’s remarkable run of consistency on the PGA Tour came to an end at The Genesis Invitational, where a final-round 6-under 65 left him in a tie for 12th and one shot shy of extending an 18-tournament run of top-10 finishes. The result matters because the streak was the longest since the tour began keeping official stats in 1983 and it also halted his sequence of eight straight top-four placings.
Scottie Scheffler’s week at Riviera: scores and survival
Scheffler’s week at Riviera began in trouble: he opened with a three-over 74 and was 5-over through 10 holes when play was called on Thursday, the worst start of his professional career. He made a few birdies in the early hours of Friday to finish 3-over for his first 18, then rebounded with a 3-under 68 in the second round and a 66 on Saturday. His Sunday rallied included a back-nine 31 and a 6-under 65, but a 21-foot putt on No. 18 stopped an inch in front of the hole when he needed birdie to crack the top 10.
Riviera Country Club’s history and the course’s quirks
The tournament is played on the George C. Thomas design at Riviera Country Club, a venue that has hosted U. S. Opens and PGA Championships and, since 1973, the PGA Tour’s Los Angeles Open, now the Genesis Invitational. The course is noted for Poa annua greens that can get bumpy and for demanding shotmaking that correlates with the traits required at Augusta National: controlling spin and trajectory and attacking small, tricky greens. That combination has frustrated even the game’s greatest names.
Troubled Riviera resumes a pattern shared with Tiger and Jack
Riviera has been a place of paradox: a long list of champions includes Hogan, Snead, Watson, Nelson, Mickelson, Couples, Faldo, Els and Adam Scott, yet it has denied victories to some of golf’s legends. Tiger Woods has made 15 starts at Riviera, debuted there on the PGA Tour as a 16-year-old amateur in 1992, made 10 cuts but only three top-10s, and finished runner-up to Ernie Els in 1999. Jack Nicklaus recorded two runner-up finishes and never won at Riviera. Max Homa called the pattern “absolutely no sense, ” and Adam Scott labeled Woods’s Riviera record “a little bit inexplicable. ” Woods himself has said the course looks comfortable to him but that the results simply haven’t aligned.
Leaderboard shifts: Bridgeman holds on, Fleetwood and Young surge past
While Scheffler was digging out of an early hole on the leaderboard, Jacob Bridgeman began Sunday with a six-shot lead that expanded to seven at one point before the 26-year-old hung on for a one-shot victory. Tommy Fleetwood vaulted past Scheffler when he holed an eagle from 173 yards on No. 15, and Cameron Young’s birdie run of the final three holes also leapfrogged Scheffler and helped push him down to a T-12 finish.
Personal history at Riviera and what it reveals about Scheffler
Scheffler arrived in Los Angeles with a mixed Riviera resume: he had missed the match-play cut at the 2017 U. S. Amateur and missed the cut as an amateur at the Genesis Open in 2018. As a professional he entered the week with four top-20s at Riviera but had never finished within six shots of the lead. He said the course and he have a “weird relationship” after holing a par putt on No. 18 Friday to make the cut. He also cited morning tee times and fresher, less chewed-up greens as a factor in his weekend improvement, and added, “I've never been one to quit, ” when describing his late surge.
Next stops: Arnold Palmer Invitational and THE PLAYERS
Scheffler’s next start is expected in two weeks at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, followed immediately by THE PLAYERS Championship. He has won each of those events twice, and both are slated to be part of his early-season schedule as he seeks to begin another stretch of sustained finishes.
The broader implication is that Riviera’s demands—Poa annua greens, wind-affected conditions and small targets—can snare even the most consistent players, turning a week that produced a comeback and a final-round 65 into the end of a historic statistical run.
