Sepp Straka Earns A Win For The Bald, Tyrrell Hatton May Be LIV's Best, And A Torrey Pines Overload

All weeks on the PGA Tour are not created equal. This isn't some new development, it has been this way forever, but man does the schedule and venue do no favors for the American Express. More on that, and a freshly bald-headed Sepp Straka cruising to victory, to come down below.

Speaking of the schedule, the Tour was forced to move The Genesis out of Los Angeles due to the wildfires, and while no official word has been made about where next month's event will be held, it's being reported that Torrey Pines will play host. That would certainly be a, uh, choice for multiple reasons.

On the other side of the world, Tyrrell Hatton earned a win in Dubai while most of America was sleeping on Sunday. His latest victory signals a number of different things that his LIV Golf counterparts as well as the American Ryder Cup team should be paying very close attention to.

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Sepp Straka's Win Overshadowed By Slow Play, A Boring Setup, And A Little Thing Called The NFL

Sepp Straka earned a two-shot victory in La Quinta, Calif. on Sunday, but it felt as if he won The American Express by a handful of shots. The Austrian made it 69 holes without making a single bogey during the event played over three different courses before bogeying two of his final three holes en route to a final round 70.

This isn't an attempt to take anything away from Straka's win, because it was an incredibly impressive four days for the former Georgia Bulldog, but there legitimately isn't much to debrief on due to the lack of drama. That lack of drama certainly isn't Straka's fault, all he did was play great golf, but as is often the case, great golf is boring golf.

You couple mostly mistake-free golf from a guy who began the final round with a four-shot cushion, rounds taking well over five hours to complete, and NFL playoff games going on at the same time; you've got yourselves a recipe for a very forgettable golf tournament.

From the die-hard golf fan's perspective, seeing Straka (slowly) cruise to victory was impressive stuff, but for the casual fan that the Tour is constantly trying to persuade, well this golf tournament at this spot on the schedule simply never will.

Straka, who now has three wins on Tour plus a successful rookie Ryder Cup appearance under his belt, did pick up a win for the balding men crowd, which can't be overstated.

He began losing his hair a while ago, and after some trash talk from fellow Bulldog Brian Harman, Straka went ahead and bit the bullet.

"I was kind of losing my hair, so I figured I would get in front of it," Straka said earlier in the week, "so yeah, just went ahead and shaved it off. [Harman] kept telling me for years, he said, ‘It’s going to go at some point,’ and once I realized that he was right I figured I might as well just go ahead and bite the bullet and shave it off."

Tyrrell Hatton Needs Your Undivided Attention

Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, and Cam Smith garner most of the attention when it comes to LIV Golf, but Tyrrell Hatton needs to be a part of that group. Hell, he may need to be the first name mentioned as we head into a new LIV season.

Hatton earned a one-shot victory in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic to jump-start his 2025 campaign, and with the victory becomes the highest-ranked LIV player at No. 8 in the world. DeChambeau is next in the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) list at No. 12 while Jon Rahm sits 34th. With LIV not being recognized by the OWGR, the rankings deserve to be taken with multiple grains of salt, but nevertheless, Hatton has earned that No. 12 ranking with his exceptional play, and nothing else.

The Englishman has spoken extensively that he only has a handful of opportunities to earn OWGR points, Ryder Cup points, and exemptions into the majors, and all he's done is deliver under that ultimate pressure. 

Hatton and DeChambeau now have a matching 13 worldwide wins to their names, and while DeChambeau undoubtedly gets the nod in any argument thanks to his two U.S. Open victories, Hatton needs to be seen as a legitimate face for LIV Golf and the European Ryder Cup team, not just ‘another good player.’  

A Potential Torrey Pines Double Dip

The PGA Tour announced last week that The Genesis would be moved from Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades due to the horrible fires that delivered catastrophic damage to the area. The announcement did not mention any course that could potentially play host to the signature event, leading the golf world to speculate as to where the tournament was headed.

While it would be exciting to see The Genesis head to an obscure course not regularly in the Tour's rotation, it would be logistically impossible to pull of that sort of feat in such a short order. From production, Shot Link data capture, volunteers, structures for fans, etc. it would make the most sense for the tournament to move to one already set up for a Tour event, and it appears that will be the case.

Rick Gehman of CBS Sports is reporting that The Genesis is headed to Torrey Pines, which happens to be the host of this week's Farmers Insurance Open. The Genesis is scheduled to begin on February 13, a week after the WM Phoenix Open on Super Bowl weekend.

The first word that comes to mind to describe this reported move is ‘fine.’

Torrey Pines, specifically the South course, has delivered some all-time moments during major championships, but with the Tour making a stop here each year playing both the North and South tracks, it's become overdone. It's borderline absurd to call Torrey Pines a throw-away course given its insane sight lines along the Pacific Ocean, but it now falls into that ‘just another course’ category.

Going to ‘just another course’ twice in the span of four weeks doesn't exactly get the juices flowing from a fan's perspective, but again, the Tour only has so many options.

Now, if The Genesis is in fact held at Torrey Pines, you would imagine the limited field of players would only play the South course, which would be a good test. A test we've taken many, many times, but a good one nonetheless.