Rory's Driver Change, Sahith Theegala's Houdini Round, Brutal Pace of Play And More From Riviera

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PACIFIC PALISADES — Max Homa, a Los Angeles native who jumpstarted his career with a win at this event two years ago, holds a two-shot lead at Riviera Country Club at the halfway point of the Genesis Invitational. Jon Rahm, who appears intent on having a chance to win every single golf tournament in 2023, is part of the group just behind. Collin Morikawa, who finished second here last year, is two shots back. Tiger Woods squeaked into the weekend after a three-over 74 took him from contention to making the cut on the number. Here are some tidbits from Friday at Riviera. 

Rory's Tiger-inspired driver change

Tiger Woods, with his bionic right leg, outdrove Rory McIlroy four times during Thursday's opening round. A big reason why: Tiger's still got plenty of speed. He was cruising in the mid 170s ball speed and pushed it to 180 a few times, and every drive on Thursday was above the Tour-average ball speed of 172 mph. But it was also largely due to McIlroy having a poor driving day, at least by his standards—he lost several drives to the right and didn't have his normal power-draw grooved. The man who finished third in strokes gained off the tee last season did not enjoy being outdriven by a 47-year-old with a fused back. 

"I'm going to go work on the range," McIlroy said after his opening 67. "I put my driver up a click in loft at the start of the week, I might have to turn it back down again. I don't like him hitting it by me."

He did indeed head to the range after his round to do some driver testing—and he decided to go with a more drastic change than just taking off some loft. McIlroy turned up to Riviera on Friday with an entirely new driver. The original TaylorMade Stealth he'd been using had been replaced by a new Stealth 2 plus model in 9.0 degrees, and given his performance on Friday, you have to think the new one's here to stay. Rory's average driving distance increased from 313.3 yards to 320.9 yards. He hit seven fairways on Friday, up from five on Thursday. And he unleashed a 388-yard missile on the third hole—the same hole where Woods hit one 364. Rory had restored order in the distance world. Perhaps Tiger deserves a thank you.

"I certainly drove the ball much better today," McIlroy said after a two-under 69 that has him four back heading to the weekend. "I didn't play the par 5s as well today, I only played those in even par. Try to play the par 5s well. That's the key to this golf course is birdieing the birdiable holes, I didn't quite do that today. I made the birdies on the tougher ones, but hopefully going into the weekend I'll sort of tidy all that up."

Sahith Theegala's Houdini round

Not all 68's are created equal. While traipsing down the driving range on Friday afternoon I noticed Sahith Theegala grinding on his golf swing. I pulled out my phone to check his score—if a guy's hitting balls on Friday afternoon, chances are he missed the cut and wants to sort his swing out immediately. I was surprised, then, to see Theegala at 3 under and right around 20th place. I congratulated him on his Friday 68. He paused, unsure what to say. Then he smiled sheepishly. 

"I think I hit five fairways over the first two days," the delightfully down-to-earth Californian said. "And these weren't landing within 40 yards of the green." He told me he'd toe-sniped one on 11 straight into the driving-range fence. He ranked 126th in strokes gained off the tee over the first two rounds, meaning he beat exactly three players in that statistic…and yet he's on to the weekend, comfortably.

His caddie, Carl Smith, pulled out his phone to summarize the afternoon with a statistic: "I'm already at 30,000 steps." Theegala then posted that toe-snipe to Twitter. 

Must be nice, eh? To shoot 68 when you can't hit a fairway?

Xander Schauffele's timely dunk

It's Michael Jordan's 60th birthday, and Xander Schauffele decided to celebrate with a slam dunk. It couldn't have happened at a better time, either. Schauffele was two shots outside the cut line when he stepped onto the par-5 17th with the sunlight fading. A flared tee shot into the right bunker forced a layup, and he still had 173 yards left for his third, uphill and into the wind. 

The line was perfect. So was the distance. 

The eagle took him to +1, and he needed a nervy two putt after the darkness horn sounded to ensure a Saturday tee time. Quite the finish.

Pace of play continues to be an issue

Last week's WM Phoenix Open didn't complete its second round until Saturday morning…but they had a valid excuse: a nearly two-hour rain delay on Thursday morning. The Genesis Invitational has no such excuses. It's downright embarrassing that 14 players will have to return to Riviera at the crack of dawn on Saturday to finish their second rounds. There was no delays at all here, and the field was only 129 players. The pace of play during the morning rounds was remarkably slow—the threesome of Woods, McIlroy and Thomas needed 4:57 to complete their rounds, and that was about average. Sure, a difficult golf course plays a factor. So does the par-4 10th hole, which is a pace-of-play disaster as an opening hole for half the field. But let's not overthink this: the biggest problem is golfers playing too slow. Despite making new rules to combat the issue in 2020, the PGA Tour still never penalizes slow play, so there's really no incentive for these guys to show up. For that reason, it's hard to blame the individual players. If they feel like taking more time makes the shot easier—and it does; making decisions quickly is part of golf's challenge—and they know they won't be punished, why speed up? Until the violators are punished, these Saturday-morning cuts will continue.

Now that we've got the complaining out of the way, our focus shifts to what should be an excellent weekend. The Big Cat will be swinging golf clubs. The leaderboard is chock-full of elite players. And the venue could well be the finest golf course on the PGA Tour. We're excited.