The PGA Tour returns to the beautiful Riviera Country Club this weekend for the Genesis Invitational, and a few things are going to be different:

• Seven members of the Hawley Ratings top 10, including the top five, will be on hand, the best collection of such talent since the first tournament of the year, the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

• Not just coincidentally, the purse of $9.3 million is the largest since the Masters last fall.

Dustin Johnson is a solid favorite for multiple reasons. He’s been first or second in six of his last eight appearances (and never worse than 11th), going back to the end of last summer. He wrapped up last year by winning the Tour Championship and the Masters and won a Euro Tour event two weeks ago in Saudi Arabia. His record at Riviera also is outstanding with a win, three seconds, and seven other top-10s in the last 12 years. Almost needless to say, he is a pretty god fit for the course too. He took a week off to rest up for this one after the round trip to the Middle East.

As supported by the ratings, there are plenty of other good choices who hope to enjoy some of the most memorable holes on the tour this weekend. Near the top of that list is Xander Schauffele, who is starting to get tired of answering questions about why he finishes second so frequently. He has four finishes in that spot (Phoenix, Farmers, CJ Cup, Tour Championship) in his last eight appearances, plus two others in fifth place and two more in the top 20. The 27-year-old San Diego State product has been in the top 25 in all three prior appearances here.

Another player whose bank account is not suffering is Hawley Ratings no. 1 Jon Rahm. He’s been in the top 20 six straight appearances, with one second (Zozo) and three sevenths.

Riviera, five years short of its 100th birthday, is in the Santa Monica Canyon within the city limits of Pacific Palisades, a bit less than 15 miles north of the LAX Airport and about a mile inland from the Pacific coast. Unless you’ve known a member for a few years and have around a quarter-million of excess cash, forget about joining the club, which self-references as the place “where passion & prestige meet”. They probably could go with a statement even a little stronger when it comes to the course and its scenic, elevated first tee; its bunkered par-three sixth (that’s a bunker within the green); and the tempting but heavily bunker-protected 10th tee, among other fun features. For many players, the strongest challenge will come off the tee boxes and from the fairways. Based on the statistical profiles of players who have been successful on the track over the past eight years, shots gained off the tee, shots gained around the green, and shots gained in approach are the three stats most strongly correlated with success here.

One player is the clear leader in that assessment, per the Hawley course fit statistics. It’s long-hitter Bryson DeChambeau, whose course fit number is better than the second-best player (Bubba Watson) by a whopping 0.56 strokes per round. A delta that large between no. 1 and no. 2 happens only about once every 10 events. DeChambeau is no. 1 among PGA and Euro pros in shots gained off the tee and in the top 10 percent in the other two lists. Bubba is top two percent off the tee, top five percent in approach, and top quarter around the green.

Others whose game measures up nicely per those stats are, in order, Johnson, Will Zalatoris, Rory McIlroy, and Rahm.

As usual, there are a few younger players who are a little bit on the outside but deserving of consideration. Two who have worked their way into the top 100 are Zalatoris, 43rd; and Henrik Norlander, 85th. Zalatoris has made all three cuts in 2021, including a top-10 at the Farmers and a top-20 at Phoenix. Norlander has played the last five events and made the cut in the last four, with bests of runner-up at the Farmers and top-20 at the AmEx.

Challengers who might come from outside the top 100 include Luke List, 131st; KH Lee, 139th; and Bo Hoag, 166th. List, a good fit for the course, has made the last three cuts and was 10th at the Farmers. Lee was runner-up at Phoenix two weeks ago. Hoag missed the cut last week but has top-20s at the Farmers and AmEx this year.

Monday night, the following was released in a statement by David Winkle, agent and manager for Dustin Johnson: “Following his successful week in Saudi Arabia, Dustin has decided it would be best to enjoy a week at home before the Genesis Invitational and the World Golf Championships at the Concession. Other than being a bit jet lagged, he is feeling great and looking forward to the weeks ahead … He is disappointed to miss the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which is always one of his favorite weeks.” Right, got it.

This is just the logical outcome of traveling over 16,000 miles (round trip) to pick up an appearance fee and whatever winnings result from playing in an event with a purse so small that the top players wouldn’t even sniff at it if it were played in the western hemisphere. On Jan. 31, Tony Finau, Viktor Hovland, and Patrick Reed finished their final rounds in the Farmers Insurance Open near San Diego and boarded a plane heading over eastern Canada toward Riyadh, where they ran into fellow PGA Tour pros Abraham Ancer, Bryson DeChambeau, Johnson, Jason Kokrak, and Kevin Na, not to mention a good handful of European natives who also play the PGA Tour, all for the thrill of competing in an event that paid under $575,00 to the winner and down to $65,000 for 10th.

Well of course these guys are independent contractors and able to do whatever they feel is in their best interest. Whether it’s in the best interest of the tour that provides the bulk of their personal wealth is another question altogether. Bottom line, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am this weekend at the fabled California peninsula is left with a field weaker than all but the bottom few PGA Tour events. We’ll go with Patrick Cantlay as favorite.

Cantlay has kind of a mixed record here but he has been playing well and his game matches up well statistically with what has been successful in this event in recent seasons. He finished strongly in 2020 with the Zozo win and a top-20 at the Masters, then started up again pretty well with a top-20 at the Champions and a runner-up finish at the AmEx three weeks ago. Cantlay has played this event four times, with his seventh-place finish as a 21-year-old in 2013 being the best. He made the cut in 2017 and 2018 and was 11th last year.

Cantlay is the only player from the Hawley Rankings top 10 in the field. Second-favorite Daniel Berger is the only player from the next 10 in the field, and Paul Casey, fresh – or maybe not so fresh – back from a trip to Saudi Arabia, is the only player from the third 10. The ratings breakdown is similar if the Official World Golf Ratings are your point of reference.

Berger has two appearances here and finished in the top 10 both times – fifth last year and 10th in 2015. He didn’t miss a cut from July until last week in Phoenix, with two top-10s and four other top-20s in a 10-event span. Casey is playing for the fourth week in a row. He finished in the top 10 in the AmEx in the California desert, then won the Omega Dubai near the UAE desert, was 12th last week in the Saudi desert, and now finds himself along the central California coast. He finished just above the cut line here last year, spoiling a fine Pebble Beach record that consists of all top-10s – eighth in 2018 and second in 2019.

The absence of so many of the high-ranking players opens things up for a number of up-and-comers, among them 24-year-olds Sam Burns, Henrik Norlander, and Will Zalatoris.

• Burns – Has mixed in two missed cuts with two top-10s and a top-20 since September.
• Norlander – Had two bad runs of missed cuts since the end of last summer but in the last three weeks has finished 22nd at Phoenix, second in the Farmers, and 12th in the AmEx.
• Zalatoris – Shot out of the Korn Ferry Tour Championship last summer to finish sixth in the U.S. Open and eighth at Puntacana; and then after a missed cut he started a current streak of five straight made cuts, including top-10s at the Shriners and Farmers.

No disrespect is intended toward those who might have some gray hairs around the ears. The field includes Casey, 43; Matt Kuchar, 46; Phil Mickelson, 50; Rory Sabbatini, 44; and Kevin Streelman, 42, none of whom would surprise as a contender.

Based on the Hawley course fit statistics, four of the strokes-gained statistics are the stats most closely correlated with success in this multi-course — Pebble Beach, Spyglass, and Monterey Peninsula – event over the past eight years. In order (although they are all nearly equally weighted), they are strokes gained off the tee, in approach, putting, and around the green. Zalatoris, Cantlay, and Burns are three of the top four players in the field in course fit, with Francesco Molinari the other. A player who may be unfamiliar to you, 19-year-old Akshay Bhatia of North Carolina, surprisingly shows up high on the list of strong fits for these courses. He has played 12 Tour events and missed the cut in 10 of them, but he is in the top 10 percent of all PGA and Euro pros in shots gained around the green and in the top quarter in shots gained off the tee and in approach. Bhatia’s first made cut was a ninth at the Safeway in September, and he later made the cut at Mayakoba. Pgatour.com lists him at 130 pounds.

Kamaiu Johnson, who was set to make his PGA Tour debut at the Farmers but cancelled after a positive COVID-19 test, will tee it up. Johnson’s inspiring story — he was an eighth-grade dropout but discovered by an employee at a course in his hometown of Talahassee FL — caught the eyes of event organizers.

The Tour announced several weeks ago that not only would the tournament be played without spectators, but the 156 amateurs who normally play three rounds also would not take part this year.