Jacob Bridgeman pipped Rory McIlroy to the Genesis Invitational title at Riviera on Sunday.
Bridgeman won for the first time in his career on the PGA Tour after a brilliant performance at Riviera.
Meanwhile, McIlroy had to make do with a runner-up finish at the Genesis Invitational.
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McIlroy is hugely excited about his game right now, after striking the ball beautifully throughout the week in Pacific Palisades.
However, Riviera’s greens caused the five-time major champion all sorts of problems.
He simply couldn’t buy a putt during his final 27 holes of the tournament until his very last hole, when it was already too late.
In fairness to McIlroy, the tricky Poa annua surfaces made it difficult for every player to hole putts throughout the week.
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Bridgeman actually had far more success than anyone else in the field on the greens at Riviera last week.
He ended the week ranked first in strokes gained putting, having gained more than 7.3 strokes on the field.
When speaking to reporters after his final round on Sunday, Bridgeman opened up on the difficulty of putting on Poa annua greens.
“Poa annua is such a tricky surface to putt on, I feel like the speed is hard to gauge,“ Bridgeman admitted.
“Especially the slope is hard to see in the shadows sometimes and with kind of the spotty grass. So I don’t see the slope as well so I didn’t really know what’s uphill, what’s downhill, all kind of things.
“Was talking to Rory after the round, he said Poa annua is one of the places where sometimes you don’t know if it’s downhill, uphill.“
Poa annua greens are notoriously difficult to putt on
There is clearly a knack to putting well on Poa annua greens.
Certain players like Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Patrick Cantlay have achieved huge success on the West Coast greens.
However, others seem to perennially struggle on the surfaces. The best example being world number one Scottie Scheffler.
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The trickiest aspect of putting on Poa annua surfaces is that they become incredibly bumpy later on in the afternoon, yet they remain fast as well.
As a result, players are often left with three and four-foot putts coming back for pars.
It’s extremely hard to lag long putts to tap-in range on Poa annua surfaces.
However, Jacob Bridgeman seems to have mastered putting on the challenging surfaces after his win at Riviera, and perhaps he will become a West Coast specialist moving forward.
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