Youth might beat experience this year at Riviera

There’s a growing youth movement on the PGA Tour that will challenge the classic, demanding layout at Riviera Country Club this week in the Genesis Open.

Traditionally, Los Angeles’ annual stop on the tour has gone to a veteran who has become familiar with the intricacies of the 90-year-old George Thomas design and learned where to hit the ball … and more important, where not to hit it. This year? Who knows?

The last seven winners on the tour have been in their 20s, and 10 of the 13 events in the 2016-17 season have been won by players under 30. In fact, the average age of the last seven winners is just under 25.

“This course definitely requires experience,” said 23-year-old Jordan Spieth, who got the ninth victory of his career Sunday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Next to Tiger Woods, he’s the youngest player to win nine times on tour since World War II.

“It’s a very mature golf course that requires a lot of thought going into it. There are a lot of tricky reads on the greens, it’s very important to place the ball on the right side of the fairways, to miss in the right locations.

“That’s why you see guys who have played here and have figured it out win, or win multiple times.”

In the last 10 years, Bubba Watson has won twice, in 2014 and last year, at ages 35 and 37. Phil Mickelson won in 2008 and 2009, the second time at 38. Bill Haas in 2012 and Aaron Baddeley in 2011 were the only players under 30 in the last 10 years to win, and both were 29.

Spieth, of course, is only one of the young winners who can expect to do well this week. He has played here four times as a professional, tying for fourth in 2015. Jon Rahm is only 22 but won the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines by three shots; Justin Thomas is 23 but won the back-to-back events in Hawaii in January; Hideki Matsuyama, current leader in the FedEx Cup standings, is 24 and has won twice this season, in addition to the unofficial Hero World Challenge.

“Riviera is one of those courses that does require a lot of local knowledge,” said Kevin Na, who finished third at Riviera in 2011. “But the tour is trending younger and younger. I think the average age now is 27-1/2; it was something like 33 only five years or so ago.”

First Look

Rob Oppenheim is going to try to defy the odds at Riviera this week. He’s a 37-year-old grinder who played on tour in 2016 but finished 158th on the money list to lose his card for this season. He’s playing Riviera, a course unfriendly to most first-timers, for the first time, thanks to a top-10 finish at Pebble Beach on Sunday.

Oppenheim’s story has been one of close calls. He narrowly qualified for the 2016 tour, by $101, after playing the 2015 Web.com Tour. And after he failed to finish in the top 125 money winners to miss the cut for this season, he tried to qualify in the Web.com playoffs. The top 25 players in those playoffs earn a PGA Tour card for the next season.

He was 26th going into the final event, $392 in prize money short of the final qualifying spot. But the final event was canceled because of Hurricane Matthew, and Openheim was again on the outside looking in.

Fortunately, he had been given a sponsor’s exemption to Pebble Beach and capitalized on it, tying for eighth. Top-10 finishers automatically qualify for the next event on the PGA Tour.

Now Riviera awaits; he has never seen the course.

“It’s awesome,” Oppenheim said. “I was fortunate that Pebble came right before Riviera. I’ve heard great things about it….

“I’ll have to do some homework before tomorrow. But I like a course that isn’t just about the power game, one that requires shot placement and has tricky greens.”

Oppenheim, who struggled down the stretch at Pebble Beach, faced a 10-foot putt on the 18th hole; he wasn’t sure whether he needed it to finish in the top 10. He made the putt. Turns out, he could have missed and still finished in the top 10.

“It was a great feeling,” he said. “Sometimes you make those, sometimes you don’t. That’s the difficulty of professional golf.”

With one of the strongest fields and a historically challenging course ahead of him, is he feeling any added pressure?

“Pressure is when you have to make a putt in Q-School or in Web.com Tour finals just to be able to keep your job,” he said.

Monday’s qualifiers

Sahith Theegala of Pepperdine got an exemption into the field by finishing as low collegiate amateur with a two-under-par 69 in the collegiate showcase Monday at Riviera.

The open qualifier for the Genesis Open was held at the Industry Hills Golf Club and Kevin Tway, Jonathan Garrick, Kevin Dougherty and J.T. Poston qualified.

sports@latimes.com