Betting Preview for the 2021 Genesis Invitational With Odds, Predictions, and Best Bets

The West Coast Swing culminates this week with one of the marquee events on the PGA Tour. Assuming Dustin Johnson doesn’t pull a fast one and WD at the eleventh hour, Tyrrell Hatton will be the only golfer ranked inside the top eight in the world, not teeing it up at Rivera.

In fact, 12 of the top 15 are in Pacific Palisades to get in on the action. The only players missing from that contingent are Hatton, Webb Simpson, and Patrick Reed.

Before I unveil my Genesis Invitational predictions, let’s check in with the pricing.

To give you an idea of how stacked the field is this week on the PGA Tour, just take a peek at Daniel Berger’s odds to win The Genesis Invitational. Berger’s ranked 13th in the world and is coming off a victory at Pebble Beach, and yet there, 13 other golfers are priced lower than him at Riviera.

It’ll be the first Bryson DeChambeau sighting on the mainland since the November Masters, and don’t be so quick to assume that “Hogan’s Alley” isn’t a good fit for the Mad Scientist. After struggling at Riv early on in his career, DeChambeau has slowly started to figure Riviera Country Club out.

Case in point – Bryson finished 15th here in 2019 and 5th in 2020.

The complexity of the golf course makes it extremely difficult for anyone to pull away by Sunday. Other than DJ lapping the field by five strokes in 2017, we haven’t seen a margin of victory greater than two shots since Nick Faldo won by three in 1997.

Should Adam Scott go on and defend his title this week, he’d be the sixth golfer to win the “LA Open” back-to-back since Ben Hogan won two in a row in 1947 and 1948.

Nobody has ever won three successive, but “Lefty” came awful close. Mickelson lost in a playoff to Charles Howell III at the 2007 Genesis Invitational.

Enough history about past events, let’s get to some 2021 Genesis Invitational picks.

A T3 wasn’t what Patrick Cantlay had in mind last week in Monterey, specifically after tying a Pebble Beach course record with a 62 on Thursday. At the same time, there are lots of positives to take away for the man currently sitting atop the FedEx Cup standings.

Cantlay led the field in SG: Tee-to-Green last week and ranks 6th in SG: Around-the-Green on the season. Going back to his victory at the Zozo Championship just 35 miles or so miles west of Riviera, Patrick hasn’t finished worse than 17th.

That’s 84-under-par in his last 20 rounds on the PGA Tour. For crying out loud, the dude has shot 65 or lower seven times this season, and we’re only halfway through February.

As for Patrick’s chances this week, the Long Beach native is more than capable of being the last man standing at Riv. 17th or better in three straight trips to the Genesis Invitational, including a 4th-place showing in 2018.

The top-10 and top-20 markets shouldn’t be ignored when you bet golf online. With that in mind, here are some more betting predictions for The Genesis Invitational.

6th at the Saudi International marked Viktor’s fourth top-6 finish in his last five starts. The dude is as rock-solid as it gets, and don’t worry about him being fatigued from his trip to the Middle East. I spotted Hovland at TPC Summerlin this past weekend tuning up his short game with Jeff Smith. That’s a good sign considering Viktor’s already among the game’s elite ball-strikers.

The challenging layout at Riviera caters to the top-tier ball-strikers. The more you wear out the center of the clubface, the more success you’ll have.

Enter Hideki Matsuyama.

Matsuyama has finished 11th or better at Riv four times since 2015, and he didn’t even tee it up here in 2018. Arriving rested since Phoenix with eight straight cuts made, Hideki landing inside the top 20 is one of the best Genesis Invitational bets you can place.