‘I couldn’t feel my hands’: Despite a frightening finish, Jacob Bridgeman mustered just enough to triumph at Riviera
· Yahoo Sports
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — With the utmost respect for Jacob Bridgeman, the fans who crowded around each tee box and green at Riviera Country Club had not come to the 100th edition of the PGA Tour’s Los Angeles event to see him win. The grade-schoolers at the ropes chanted “Ro-ry! Ro-ry!” They desperately stuck their hands under the ropes for even the chance at a slap from a career Grand Slam winner. Outside the doors of the glorious Spanish-style clubhouse, as the back-nine drama played out, there was another crowd—this one shouting, “We want Scottie! We want Scottie!”
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L.A. loves both its stars and comeback stories, and many of those who showed up on this sun-splashed last Sunday in February arrived with the hope that they’d somehow see a movie that could remotely rival McIlroy’s triumph in the Masters last April. Coming from six shots back in the final round, for a first victory at Hogan’s Alley, in Tiger Woods’ Genesis Invitational would be quite the sequel.
The notion bordered on pure fantasy, and yet when Bridgeman and McIlroy walked off the 18th green to the cheers of an enormous crowd in Riviera’s natural amphitheater, it was Bridgeman heaving an enormous sigh of relief and McIlroy running his fingers through his graying hair, thinking about what might have been.
McIlroy finally stirred a true roar from the gallery when his 30-foot putt on the 72nd hole barely tipped into the cup for birdie, putting him in a tie at 17 under with Kurt Kitayama, who charged with a 64.
Bridgeman, who’d squandered six strokes from a seven-shot margin early in the round, had to only two-putt for par from 16 feet. No problem in any other round he’d ever played. Except there was this: “I couldn’t feel my hands,” he’d later recall.
The second-year tour player weakly left himself a three-footer below the hole but then summoned enough muscle memory to punch in the par, shoot one-over 72 for an 18-under total and celebrate his first PGA Tour victory in his first-ever appearance at Riviera.
Of course, when Bridgeman had triumphed the L.A. fans cheered him heartily because there’s another storyline they covet: one of the underdog. Even if the champion never saw himself as such.
Bridgeman, 26, admitted that overnight he’d envisioned a victory, though it didn’t look anything like this.
“I've seen so many guys walking up 18 with the crowd kind of behind you, the amphitheater, surrounding the green is such a cool moment,” he said. “And I pictured myself walking up that hole with a four-shot lead and knowing that I've won.
“But, unfortunately for me, it was only a one-shot lead. It became a lot more nervous. So, I kept my head down, didn't really look up until the end. I felt like if I had kind of become overwhelmed by the moment, that might have distracted me.”
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In his winner’s news conference, Bridgeman recalled that only a couple of weeks ago, he watched with buddies as good friend Chris Gotterup won the WM Phoenix Open in a playoff. At the time, he wondered why Gotterup looked so darned uncomfortable over putts.
“We were, like, ‘What were you doing?’” Bridgeman said. “And he said, ‘I have no idea. I couldn’t feel my hands.’ And I thought that was kind of crazy until after this moment.”
It’s a good bet that Bridgeman was among the most unrecognizable names when casual fans scanned the tee sheet for the first two rounds of a 72-player, $20 million signature event, even with an already strong pro resume. Success has come relatively quickly for him—the former Clemson star got his Korn Ferry Tour card in 2024 through the PGA Tour University program, and a strong season (three top-5s) pushed him onto the PGA Tour in 2025. Bridgeman hardly looked like a wide-eyed rookie last year, notching five top-fives, including a near-win in the Cognizant Classic, while reaching the Tour Championship.
Having already posted four top-25 finishes this season, Bridgeman wasn’t without followers heading into the week. When Sunday afternoon’s formal interviews concluded, a tour official said there was a surprise for him. He was then shown congratulatory videos on a cell phone from a couple of Clemson football legends—current Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Tigers head coach Dabo Sweeney.
Bridgeman recounted that he and Lawrence were in school at the same time, but that the QB was “so famous” they’d only briefly interacted. Sweeney, he said, came around for chipping lessons from the golf team on occasion.
With a big grin, Bridgeman said, “I'm glad that they're supportive of me, that means a lot.”
Mike Mulholland
For the first 57 holes of the tournament, Bridgeman could hardly have played better. After an opening 66, he fired a pair of 64s and went into the final round with a chance to break the tour’s longest lasting tournament scoring record—Lanny Wadkins’ 20-under 264 in 1985. Ultimately, Bridgeman led the tournament in strokes gained for approach and putting—a formidable combination.
It was only on Sunday, after his only two birdies came on the first three holes, that Bridgeman lamented the difficulty of Riviera’s poa annua greens. In truth, they had been his defense against the likes of McIlroy, who struggled mightily on his reads and will bemoan so many attempts that would have whittled Bridgeman’s margin to nothing.
“For whatever reason I had a bunch of putts that I thought I was going to make, and when I got over the ball, I thought they were going in and they just bounced out and didn't go in, whatever it may be,” Bridgeman said. “I thought I would be a few under going into the last three, and I was one over or even or whatever it was. So that made it a lot more stressful. But luckily those guys didn't make a run till late.”
Over the last 15 holes, Bridgeman couldn’t make a birdie, and as an intentional scoreboard watcher, he began to see his lead shrink. Playing several groups ahead, two-time tour winner Katayma birdied the 16thand 17th and missed a birdie putt at 18 to tie for the lead. Past Riviera winner Adam Scott had also applied some pressure with a back-nine 31 and second 63 for the week that got him to 16 under.
“Wherever the leaderboards are today, I saw them all,” Bridgeman said. “I don't shy away from knowing where I'm at. Maybe that's a bad thing at times, but I wanted to know if somebody was doing something and I needed to press a button to make a couple birdies. … I felt comfortable right till the end there.”
The bogey that shook him was the only one he suffered on the back. Bridgeman hit into the bunker on the par-3 16th and played a safe shot out that would guarantee him no more than a bogey. Then he had to get home. His approach at the par-5 17th found the greenside bunker and he could only make par while watching McIlroy record a birdie to get to within two shots.
Bridgeman’s nerves would seem to have been settled when he piped his drive up the hill into the fairway at 18. His approach from 195 yards was textbook, below the hole. Then …
“I was very comfortable with a full shot. I felt like I was just kind of in robot mode and autopilot, I could just swing the club, and it would do exactly what it's supposed to do,” Bridgeman said. “Then it got to times when I had to have it rely on my feel, and I didn't have much of it at the end of the round.
“On 17 and 18, those putts I had no idea how hard to hit them; I didn't know what I was doing at all,” he added. “I'm just glad they weren't 30 feet, I'm glad they were only 20. I just somehow got it three feet short of the hole [on 18]. The only thing I wasn't going to do was hit it past. … If I could make a three-footer up the hill, it would be a lot better than down.”
Bridgeman pointed his putter and the ball hit the heart of the cup.
Mike Mulholland
The winner climbed Riviera’s steep steps to scoring and was greeted immediately by Woods, who wore a wide smile and familiar Sunday red shirt. Bridgeman laughed later, saying he didn’t recall much of what Woods said to him in that moment, and that they later talked about the incomparable scene of Riviera’s 18th.
Of course, it was truly surreal for Bridgeman to be handed the trophy from Woods, whom he’d idolized as a child. “When he was in his prime, I was learning to talk and walk and play golf,” he said of the now-50-year-old superstar.
If Tiger might wince at that, he graciously reminded Bridgeman that he’d pulled off something Woods never has: win at Riviera.
“I got one thing,” Bridgeman said with a laugh. “He’s got all of the other ones, but I got one.”