PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Rory McIlroy gave a short reply to his thoughts on the lengthening of Riviera Country Club’s par-3 fourth hole to more than 270 yards.
“I actually think it’s a horrible change,” he said.
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Not a lot of love for a hole that Ben Hogan once called “the greatest par 3 in America.”
Why such a harsh assessment on stretching the famed hole, part of Hogan’s Alley, to 273 yards on the scorecard, some 40 yards from a year ago? “Well, like 15 percent of the field hit the green last time when it was played at its original yardage at 230,” McIlroy said ahead of the 2026 Genesis Invitational.
Rory McIlroy on the fourth green during the first round of the 2022 Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club.
It does seem a bit silly given that in 2024, the most recent playing at Riviera due to last year’s wildfires in the area that shifted the event to San Diego’s Torrey Pines, No. 4 played as the third toughest hole on the course.
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The 72-man signature event field played the hole in 49-over par for the week and managed just 11 birdies.
“Like, if you want it to be a 275-yard par-3, you have to change the apron leading up onto the green. It can’t be kikuyu, it has to be another type of grass that can help you run it onto the green because again, in the right conditions, you try to fly that ball on the green with a 3-iron, it’s going to land, it’s going to finish up on the fifth tee box. That’s sort of what I mean by why it’s not a great change.”
Jordan Spieth went a step further. “It’s the only weak spot on the course, in my opinion,” he told Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine.
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The hole is course designer George Thomas’s take on the Redan hole at North Berwick in Scotland, one of the most replicated holes in golf. The term Redan originates from a French word for part of a fortification, and the green at such a hole is usually well protected. Typically, the green slopes from the front right to back left, calling for a draw to make best use of the slopes while a reverse Redan calls for a fade.
“It’s too soft, unfortunately, to have a lot of control to say, man, I’m going to play a tight 5-iron and run it up. I think a lot of us play it left to chip uphill, but with a 3-wood in hand, that cart path on the left, honestly, comes into play because the dispersion just gets that much bigger,” Collin Morikawa said. “It’ll be very interesting. I think it’s just a very long par 3. There’s not a lot of thought to it other than just kind of hitting the green and moving on, unfortunately.”
That’s what reigning U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun, who striped a 3-wood to the right edge and fed it down to about 6 feet did during his practice round.
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Asked about what was so hard about that, Spaun said, “Because it’s Wednesday. It didn’t matter really today.”
It starts to matter on Thursday and that’s when the players will really start barking about what they really think of the hole.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth critical of 273-yard par-3 hole at Genesis
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