AI-assisted summaryTiger Woods hosts the Genesis Invitational, a PGA Tour Signature Event, starting Thursday at the Torrey Pines Golf Club in La Jolla, Calif.The tournament’s main charity is Woods’ TGR Foundation, which impacts children and youth through education.Woods played his first PGA Tour event in the forerunner to the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in 1992.Tiger […]
AI-assisted summaryTiger Woods hosts the Genesis Invitational, a PGA Tour Signature Event, starting Thursday at the Torrey Pines Golf Club in La Jolla, Calif.The tournament’s main charity is Woods’ TGR Foundation, which impacts children and youth through education.Woods played his first PGA Tour event in the forerunner to the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in 1992.Tiger Woods has two heroes and mentors in golf, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.
It was Woods’ only loss in 12 playoffs and the Genesis Invitational remains the only PGA Tour event in California that Woods has played and never won.
In addition to chasing down their records on the course, Woods wanted to emulate another aspect of their careers: host an elite PGA Tour event. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Tiger Woods began hosting in 2020
The tournament’s main charity is Woods’ TGR Foundation, which impacts children and youth through education. More than 200,000 have been served through TGR Learning Labs in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Calif., and Philadelphia and Educator Professional Learning program. The PGA Tour was only too willing to agree to Woods’ association with the tournament, given his 82 Tour titles, 15 major championships, two Players championships and a name that still resonates in the sport despite not winning since the 2019 Masters.
Woods hosts an off-season event, the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Scottie Scheffler won in December, the 25th playing of the tournament. There are 25 winners of the Genesis Invitational in the World Golf Hall of Fame. Oddly enough, Woods is not one of them. He never won the tournament but came closest in 1998, when he lost to Billy Mayfair in a playoff.“In recognition of Tiger’s place alongside Jack and Arnold as a modern-day golf icon who hosts a home-based PGA Tour tournament, plus the common thread of doing exceptional philanthropic work through his TGR Foundation, elevating the Genesis Open is an important and deserved step toward further cementing Tiger’s legacy in our sport,” Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a 2019 statement. Tiger Woods made PGA Tour debut in Genesis Woods played his first PGA Tour event in the forerunner to the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in 1992. It was also the site of Nicklaus’ professional debut in 1962, where he tied for 50th and earned $33.33. 
The Genesis Invitational, a Tour Signature Event, begins on Thursday at the Torrey Pines Golf Club in La Jolla, Calif. It was moved from its traditional site at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades because of the Los Angeles wildfires but will return there in 2026.
Tiger Woods has never won the Genesis
Woods and the Tour announced his association with the tournament in 2019, for the 2020 tournament. It was upgraded from a regular Tour event (and one with a long, rich history, dating back to 1926) with a million purse, an elite field (46 of the top 50 players on the world rankings are entered this week) and 700 FedEx Cup points for the winner. After an association earlier in his career with The National, a July tournament in Washington and Philadelphia that folded because of sponsorship issues, Woods seems to have settled on the Genesis Invitational as the event associated with his name now and in the future. He announced last week that he would make his 2025 debut this week at Torrey Pines, but then reversed field on Monday and said he would not play, saying his game is not where he wants it to be. Two of the Sifford Exemption recipients, J.J. Spaun and Cameron Champ, have gone on to become PGA Tour winners.
