Aaron Rai, who finished 16 holes, is the overnight leader at 6 under in the rain interrupted Genesis Invitational gold championships at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World No 2 Rory McIlroy and Jacob Bridgeman posted 5-under 66s to trail the Englishman and just one stroke ahead of Ryan Fox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pack of co-stars sit at 3 under, including Collin Morikawa, Akshay Bhatia and Pierceson Coody, below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rai opened with an eagle on the first hole, then added six birdies against two bogeys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Genesis Open is his third event of the season, having finished tied-50th at the Sony Open and tied-73rd at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rai, who won the Wyndham Championship last year, is seeking his first second PGA Tour title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McIlroy, who failed to shine at Pebble Beach last week, recorded his lowest opening-round at the links, in his tenth start at the championships. Ironically, McIlroy has the third most wins (29) on the Tour without a win at The Genesis Invitational over the last 30 years behind Tiger Woods\/82 and Vijay Singh\/31).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bridgeman, making his tournament debut, rebounded from a double bogey on the fourth hole after an eagle on No 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He finished in the top 10 in four starts this season – tied fourth at the Sony Open in Hawaii and tied eighth at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Morikawa, fresh off his win at Pebble Beach, posted 3-under 68, as he seeks a back-to-back title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defending FedExCup champion Tommy Fleetwood is a shot back on 69 while two-time Genesis Invitational champion Adam Scott fired a 70.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defending champion Ludvig \u00c5berg is trailing the leader with a one over-par 72 round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World No. 1 and 20-time PGA TOUR winner Scottie Scheffler is on a disastrous start, with a +5 thru 10 holes. He is tied for dead last with Keegan Bradley. Scheffler failed to make a single birdie but blew up with double bogey on the par-4 eighth after hitting his second shot into the grandstand right of the green. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PARTIAL First-Round Leaderboard<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron Rai, who finished 16 holes, is the overnight leader at 6 under in the rain interrupted Genesis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[58],"class_list":["post-9675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-golf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai.jpg",2003,1127,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-1536x864.jpg",1536,864,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai.jpg",2003,1127,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"International<\/a>","tag_info":"International","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Aaron-Rai.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9677,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9675\/revisions\/9677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Pos.<\/strong><\/td> Player<\/strong><\/td> Total<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> 1<\/td> Aaron Rai<\/td> -6 thru 16<\/td><\/tr> T2<\/td> Jacob Bridgeman<\/td> 66 (-5)<\/td><\/tr> T2<\/td> Rory McIlroy<\/td> 66 (-5)<\/td><\/tr> 4<\/td> Ryan Fox<\/td> 67 (-4)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"