Genesis Invitational: Jacob Bridgeman ties 54-hole scoring record, leads by 6 at Riviera
Pacific Palisades — As seasoned tour veterans like Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Adam Scott struggled to make putts on Riviera’s challenging greens during Saturday’s third round of Genesis Invitational, Jacob Bridgeman had no such struggles, leading the field in strokes gained by a large margin.
Bridgeman’s (-19) strong work on the greens helped him post the low round of the day, a 7-under 64, that puts him six shots ahead of McIlroy (-13) heading into Sunday’s final round. Bridgeman’s six-shot cushion ties Steve Stricker for the largest 54-hole lead in tournament history.
Aldrich Potgieter’s third round 6-under 65 helped the young South African bolt up the leaderboard into third place at 12 under. Aaron Rai is fourth at 11 under.
Bridgeman said for much of his career, he has struggled on poa annua greens like they have at Riviera. He admitted his putting woes on poa often left him frustrated, affecting other parts of his game in the process. So this week, he has had the mindset of trying to accept that every putt he hits may not go where he wants, lessening his frustration level in the process.
“I know there are some of them are going to bump out like mine on the last hole,” Bridgeman said. “I hit a good putt, but it just bumped left, and it didn’t go in. In the past, I would get kind of frustrated with that and that would kind of inch over into my stroke and play. In the middle of my round, I hit a few way too hard and told my caddie, I’ve got to hit those a little softer, they’re not taking a break. After that, I feel like I hit a lot of good putts.”
Throughout the course of the West Coast Swing, Bridgeman has consistently played well, but he’s taken it to another level this week at Riviera, where he has posted three straight rounds of 66 or better.
“Today fun and easy. My swing felt nice, and it was fun out there,” Bridgeman said. “Everyone was cheering, so yeah, it was a good day. I’ve played great this whole week and I felt great today.”
Bridgeman had a strong rookie season a year ago, playing well enough to claim a spot in the Tour Championship. His 2025 campaign included a runner-up finish at the Cognizant Classic and a strong showing at the Valspar Championship, where he actually held the lead during the final round but finished third. Fast forward to last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am, where twice in the final round, Bridgeman held the solo lead, but he was unable to close the deal and ended up finishing in a tie for eighth.
Bridgeman believes those previous close calls when he was in contention will serve him well as he tries to win for the first time on the PGA Tour.
“I didn’t play great Sunday at Valspar, but I still kind of hung in there, gave myself a chance,” Bridgeman said. “I think the most part is I’ll know kind of how I’m going to feel and be confident in that.”
While Bridgeman hit a ton of great shots on Saturday, none were bigger or better than his second shot at the par-5 11th hole, where his 7-wood shot from 265 yards came to rest a few inches from the cup, giving him a tap-in eagle.
“I tried to hit it as soft as I could and hit a high fade, and I think the wind kind of gusted a little bit and carried it a little bit farther than we thought,” Bridgeman said. “Right when I hit it, I saw it taking off, and I knew it was going to be nice, and then it hit right over that slope and the crowd kind of jumped a little bit and were cheering, so I thought it went in. Then I heard the “ohhhh,” and I knew it missed. That was one I was trying to be a little bit conservative, and it turned out to be amazing.”
The odds of McIlroy chasing down a player who is six shots ahead are not great, but the World’s No. 2-ranked player can lean on the fact that twice in his career he has erased a six-shot deficit to win a tournament.
“I’m hitting the ball well,” McIlroy said when asked about his chances heading into Sunday. “If I can keep driving it like that, putting the ball in the fairway, just giving myself chances, that’s all I can really do. I’m six back, I need to get off to a fast start, try to apply some pressure and hopefully I can do that.”
McIlroy will need to see a lot more success on the greens in the final round if he hopes to have any chance at winning for the first time at Riviera. He said most of Saturday, he was a “defensive putter,” because of the difficult Riviera greens.
“They’re hard because you don’t want to hit them too hard obviously, but then the softer you hit them, the more break they’re going to take early,” McIlroy said. “There’s a lot of double breakers here, so my putt on 16 today was a great example. I had to hit it really soft. It was left to right early, but the last half of the putt was right to left, but it went so far right early because I hit it so soft, it never had a chance to come back. It’s tough.”
With a six-shot lead and 18 holes to play, most players might opt to play more conservatively and try to eliminate mistakes and make the other players go low to have a chance. But being an aggressive player by nature, Bridgeman said he doesn’t plan to change his mindset to try and protect his lead.
“I’ve been playing pretty aggressive and it’s been working,” Bridgeman said. “If that aggression gets me into a little bit of trouble (Sunday), that’s OK. Maybe it will kind of balance out with some good ones so I don’t think anything’s going to change. If it doesn’t work out that way, maybe I’ll reassess halfway through, but I’m going to probably play the same way.”