Jacob Bridgeman won the 2026 Genesis Invitational for his first career PGA Tour win. He defeated Rory McIlroy and Kurt Kitayama by one stroke after shooting a final round of 72 (+1).
Bridgeman began the final round with a six-shot lead. His only two birdies came in his first three holes. Over the last 15 holes, he made three bogeys and 12 pars to bring other competitors into the mix.
Kitayama’s charge up the leaderboard came with four birdies on both the front and back nine. His lone bogey of the day was on the seventh hole, and that kept him one shot away from a playoff.
While Kitayama had a hot putter going, the same could not be said for McIlroy. He had three birdie putts and an eagle putt all within 11 feet on the front nine, but he could not convert on any of them. However, he did make four birdies on the closing nine to come up one shot short of Bridgeman.
Scottie Scheffler finished T12, ending his streak of 18 consecutive top-10 finishes that started at last year’s Texas Children’s Houston Open.
One week after Bridgeman’s debacle on the 18th hole of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, he earned his first career win at the event hosted by Tiger Woods. The Clemson alum has been playing well thus far this season. He has made all five cuts in his five starts, with his lowest finish before today being a T18 at the WM Phoenix Open.
He earned 700 FedExCup points, $4 million paycheck and moved to first in the FedExCup standings with this win.
Bridgeman had this to say about what he was feeling on the 17th and 18th greens. “Then when 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.”
The Florida swing of the PGA Tour schedule starts next week at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches, with three events to follow. Joe Highsmith is looking to defend his title in a field that includes Daniel Berger, Shane Lowry and Adam Scott, who had quite the week this week.
