Riviera Country Club, host of the Genesis Invitational, is a favourite among PGA Tour players.
It’s a strategic golf course that players need to think their way around. It doesn’t rely on water hazards or length. Instead, players are faced with a difficult surface to read and different ways to play each hole. Positioning is everything around Hogan’s Alley.
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But the course is making a change to one of its most iconic holes in 2026. Ben Hogan once called par three fourth hole the best par-three in America, featuring a massive front-side bunker and a two-tiered green.
This year, it has been extended 40 yards, and Graeme McDowell is majorly concerned about that.
11 Apr 1994: A general view of the 4th hole at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, site of the 1995 PGA Championships. Mandatory Credit: Gary Newkirk /Allsport
Graeme McDowell said extending Riviera’s fourth hole could destroy it
The already long par three at Riviera is now being extended by 40 yards, making it a 273-yard par three. It was already the third-hardest hole on the course, and now it’s even more difficult.
Players hit this green just 15% of the time in 2025, so this will be a near-impossible challenge as the headcovers come off. And LIV Golfer McDowell is concerned for this iconic hole.
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He posted to X, “Few holes that you would like to lengthen on this great course, but this wouldn’t be my first choice. Obsession with total yardage can destroy individual great holes.”
This once great par three has now been turned into effectively a par four, and while players have drastically increased their length in recent years, it’ll be a real struggle for players to keep it on the green here. It’s hard to imagine this is what was originally intended for this hole.
Viktor Hovland called par-threes over 200 yards ‘silly’
This is a debate that raged last year when the US Open was held at Oakmont Country Club. The eighth hole was a 290-yard par-three, which Viktor Hovland called “silly.”
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He said, “I just think all the best par-threes are under 200 [yards]. You can maybe have it just over 200, but as soon as you start to take head covers off on par-3s, I just think it gets a little silly.”
He continued, “It just becomes like, okay, you got a certain target here and then you got to hit a shot around there and make a par and get out of there… instead of a shorter par-3 that entices you to get close to it, but if you’re a little bit off, you’re either in the water or in a short-sided spot.
“I would rather take on more risk and have everything a little tighter, where you have to hit a golf shot, versus me teeing up a three-wood.”
The seventh hole at Pebble Beach and the 12th at Augusta National are iconic not because of their length, but because of the conditions and the accuracy needed. These holes should be a test of accuracy, not distance, so the answer is making greens shorter and bunkers a bigger threat.
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