Don’t act like you’re surprised seeing Spieth’s name here in the favorites section. After a relatively down 2016 campaign, Spieth has been making noise once again this season. Spieth hasn’t finished lower than a T9 finish in four outings this 2017. His confidence is on a high right now, especially following his first win of the season in the recently concluded AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He’ll look to continue his roll at Riviera, where he’s had a T4 finish back in 2015.
Johnson didn’t make the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open, but we could just chuck that up as an aberration. Johnson easily regained his footing with a third-place finish at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He will travel to Riviera carrying some fond memories of success there. In five starts at Riviera since 2010, Johnson has managed to get five top-four finishes, so it’s reasonable to expect the South Carolina native to play like a house on fire this weekend.
Let’s give Steele some props for having quite a start to the season. At +5,000 to win in Riviera, it seems Steele is a tasty pick for folks looking to hit paydirt off a sleeper. Steele has three top 10’s in seven starts thus far this season, including back-to-back T6 finishes at the SBS Tournament of Champions and the CareerBuilder Challenge last month. He followed that up with a T20 at the Farmers Insurance and a T16 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Steele appears to be a happy camper when at Riviera, as he’s pocketed a pair if Top 15’s there in 2014 and 2015.
Don’t mind that Holmes has yet to win a tournament this season. Holmes’ highest finish thus far was an 11th-place finish at the Hero Challenge last December. That was followed by T33 at Torrey Pines and a pair of T25’s at Scottsdale and in Pebble Beach. What’s keeping bettors excited for Holmes’ chances of taking home the title this weekend is the fact that he has seven top 25’s in 10 starts at Riviera.
Na is looking for some consistency this season in which his results have been topsy-turvy so far. After kicking off the season with a seventh-place finish at the Safeway Open, Na has been cut once, ended with T70, T54, and T36 finishes. He did much better at Scottsdale last week, where he had a T16 finish. Note that Na was third at Riviera in 2011.
