Jacob Bridgeman won the 2026 Genesis Invitational at the Riviera Country Club, which also celebrated its 100th anniversary. It is also his first career victory on the PGA Tour. Winning for the first time on Tour is always special, and when it comes with multiple other records at one of golf’s most iconic venues, it is just the cherry on top.

Here are the three new records Jacob Bridgeman set with his breakthrough win.

Shattering the ceiling at Riviera

Riviera Country Club is famous for its challenging greens that are notoriously difficult to approach. Over the previous 10 years, players have managed to hit only about 18% of their approach shots to within 15 feet of the hole. Jacob Bridgeman completely dismantled this benchmark, hitting his approach shots to 15 feet or closer 33% of the time (more than double) during his winning week.

To understand more clearly, only very few players have ever reached this level of ‘flag-hunting’ in a single tournament. One of the few to exceed Bridgeman’s mark recently was Collin Morikawa.

The 29-year-old gained 6.46 shots on the field with his approach play during his win at the 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am just weeks prior. In the past, Tiger Woods also came close during his dominant 2006 win at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. 

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Before arriving at Riviera, Bridgeman was already a good iron player, but it wasn’t that kind of dominance. The Riviera was really special for the 26-year-old golfer!

Joining the elite club

Jacob Bridgeman became just the fourth player in the ShotLink era (since 2004) to win a PGA Tour event while leading the entire field in both Strokes Gained: Approach and Strokes Gained: Putting.

In simple terms, Strokes Gained: Approach measures how much better a player’s iron and wedge shots are compared to the rest of the field. If most players in the field take three shots to finish from the fairway and you hit it need only two, you will gain a stroke. And Strokes Gained: Putting measures how many shots you save on the greens by making longer putts.

Bridgeman now shares this record with three other legendary names-

1. Adam Scott (2004 Booz Allen)- Scott is the first one to do it in the ShotLink era.
2. Steve Flesch (2007 Turning Stone)
3. Keegan Bradley (2023 Travelers)-Bradley posted +7.288 in approach and +7.036 in putting

Now Bridgeman’s name comes fourth in this list.

A historic debut

Most importantly, Jacob Bridgeman won The Genesis Invitational in his 66th career start at the age of 26 years, 2 months, and 16 days. In doing so, he became the 13th first-time winner in the tournament’s long history and the first since James Hahn in 2015.

Even more impressive, Bridgeman won in his tournament debut, becoming the first player since Pat Fitzsimons in 1975.

The weight of this achievement was visible during the post-tournament interview with Amanda Balionis.

“This is way, way better than I’ve ever dreamt it. I made it about as hard as I could have made it, making it one shot and having to make a three-footer at the end. But yeah, this is incredible,” he said.

Bridgeman’s victory comes after a season of building momentum. He entered the week with four straight top-20 finishes, including a T8 at Pebble Beach. And now, this win propelled him to the No. 1 spot in the FedExCup standings and secured his PGA Tour playing privileges for the next two seasons.