The 2024 Genesis Invitational: Tiger Woods, Hideki Matsuyama, & Will Zalatoris

Written by: Tony Schwartz

Last Updated: February 19, 2024

The Genesis Invitational, a PGA Tour tournament hosted by Tiger Woods at the storied Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles, has two storylines that we're following on Planet Divot. The first is that Hideki Matsuyama overcame a six-shot differential to win the tournament after engaging in a multi-way tie with 4+ players in the final round. This is Hideki's 9th PGA Tour win, which came after he fired a final round 62 to earn himself a $4,000,000 payday and his first win of 2024. In fact, Hideki is coming off of a winless season last year despite earning himself 11th in the FedEx Cup standings and over $5,000,000 in official earnings. So for Hideki to begin the 2024 season off with a strong win at a highly contested tournament to start the PGA Tour's 2024 season has to be motivating, encouraging, and very well could instill a sense of confidence in Hideki that will make him a dangerous threat and competitor at any tournament he competes in. With one of the smoothest swings in the game and fundamentals sound enough to be equipped by the best player in the world, Hideki's 2024 season has some serious potential that we're going to be following closely throughout the year.

The second storyline coming out of The Genesis Invitational involves Tiger Woods' withdrawal. Many wrongly speculated that Tiger Woods withdrew from the tournament due to a physical injury when in fact Tiger confirmed on X that he withdrew due to symptoms of the flu. Either way, we're certainly not the only ones who were hoping that Tiger's withdrawal was linked to something temporary and minor. As serious a competitor as Tiger Woods, and even despite the reminders that he is a human being with real limitations and deterioration as any aging adult experiences, we are still moved to concern when he chooses to withdraw from competition. Knowing that Tiger plays to win, we do not take his decision to withdraw lightly, and so we are pleased to learn that these symptoms appear to be temporary and associated with the flu, those reports were confirmed by Rob McNamara and Golf.com, and that Tiger's next tournament of the year very well could be The PLAYERS Championship on Mar 14 - 17. Time will tell!

The last storyline we're paying attention to involves Will Zalatoris. First, we'd highly encourage Planet Divot readers to check out this 5-minute read from PGATour.com regarding Will's comeback, family loss, and the overarching storylines surrounding Will. Their story served as our primary source.

Despite emotional stress caused by loss of a family member, Will Zalatoris showed perseverance and willpower that transcends sports and competition to finish as the runner-up at the 2024 Genesis Invitational. The combination of Will's qualification for this event through a sponsor exemption combined with his runner-up finish having facilitated his qualifying for The PLAYERS Championship in March is worth your attention. The serendipitous hole-in-one on the 14th hole which won he and his caddie new Genesis vehicles - GV70 and GV80. We're following this storyline because Will deserves the comeback that he's earned by putting in the work of adjusting his swing, finding the correct body-swing connection module, and executing within the parameters of his physical construct. This, his 5th runner up finish on the PGA Tour, is appears to be a very solid omen for what's to come for Will Zalatoris. Well deserved to this young man.