There are full-circle moments that happen in everyone’s life, and Mike Antolini is experiencing one right now. He is a senior vice-president of TGR Live and tournament director of the Genesis Invitational. In the past couple of weeks, Antolini’s responsibilities have brought him to an operations trailer in the carpark of the Torrey Pines golf courses after the Genesis event had to be moved to San Diego after January’s devastating wildfires in Los Angeles.
Preparing for an unprecedented tournament at Torrey? Antolini has been here before. Nearly two decades ago, in a spot nearly identical to the location of his current trailer, Antolini served as the two-year USGA advance person for the 2008 US Open, the first of two to be played on the Torrey Pines South course.
All of that work had a sweet payoff when Tiger Woods pulled off one of his most dramatic major wins by beating Rocco Mediate in a playoff while Woods played with fractures in his leg. Antolini’s stature rose in the golf world, and now he essentially works for Woods at TGR Live, the events arm of Woods’ company.
Fittingly, as was confirmed on Saturday, Woods will have a huge impact on the tournament he hosts, as he’s making his first start of the 2025 season and his competitive return to Torrey Pines for the first time since 2020. The most recent of Woods’ eight pro wins on the course came in 2013.
“I think it’s going to be a good, very strong energy in the air next Thursday and throughout the week,” Antolini said in an interview last Friday.
“You could tell a thousand stories about Tiger and some aspect of professional golf, be it course or tournament or shot. And when you think about Torrey and the relationship he has with this course and the tournament site, it’s a long story. So we’re happy to extend that again, given the circumstances we find ourselves in.”
Those circumstances would be, in less than a month’s time, moving a $US20 million signature event on the tour, featuring most of the best golfers in the world, 200 kilometres south to the venue that hosted the Farmers Insurance Open in late January. TGR and Genesis staff, as well as representatives from the Century Club of San Diego, have been essentially working around the clock, Antolini said, to make the Invitational as unique and successful as possible. It’s been an enormous task in all respects, including the work that goes into ticket sales, hospitality options, volunteers, concessions and security.
“It’s been an interesting and unique dynamic,” Antolini said. “One thing in the event world, you have to condition yourself to expect the unexpected. Now, obviously, we’re here because of a catastrophic set of circumstances. And we’re trying to harness that energy into making next week as successful as it can be, because we’re able to use the week to increase support for the region, the community and the wildfire victims.”
Fundraising has been a key part of professional golf for decades, and Genesis is looking to take it to another level for the tournament with numerous opportunities for fans and companies to donate. The luxury car brand, part of Hyundai Motor Company, in conjunction with TGR and the PGA Tour, has begun the “California Rises” campaign to raise money for the American Red Cross, California Fire Foundation, World Central Kitchen and Genesis Inspiration Foundation. There will be opportunities to donate on-site, including special merchandise that will generate 100-percent give-back to the charities. Antolini said ticket fees will be passed on to the charities, and Genesis also is donating money for every score of birdie or better in the tournament.
In a nice gesture to first responders, Antolini noted that they’ll have the opportunity to be honorary observers with the groups during tournament play.
Antolini and his staff have hardly had time to think about impact of the fires on their own lives, or even on the effect on the Genesis Invitational beyond next week. He said no one in the group lived inside the evacuation zones, but, of course, many of the members and workers associated with Riviera were deeply affected. And on the day, January 7, the fires first raged, Antolini and a handful of staff had to be evacuated from the renowned country club. At the time, he said approximately 70 percent of the structures for the tournament were in place.
“[Riviera] is a second home to many of us, at least in the world of golf,” Antolini said. “…Certainly, it’s devastating, and although we’ll be a little further south next week at Torrey Pines, our hearts, minds and souls are very much with Riviera and the entire community.”
As for the golf, the field that was finalised on Saturday will be the strongest seen at Torrey Pines since the 2021 US Open won by Jon Rahm. Forty-six of the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking are entered, including Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. The only top-10 players missing are No.2 Xander Schauffele, who remains injured, and LIV Golf players Tyrrell Hatton and Bryson DeChambeau.
Under the circumstances, Antolini doesn’t think there could have been a better solution than coming to Torrey Pines.
“To be able to relocate to another championship-calibre course, it’s certainly fortunate to be able to have the world’s best players tee it up in a signature event at Torrey,” he said. “We were welcomed with open arms,” he added, “and we, quite frankly, needed that to be able to relocate the tournament in [less than] a month.”
For everything that has happened in these past six weeks, Antolini has maintained a perspective on what his challenges have been relative to all of those whose lives were forever changed by the fires.
“It pales in comparison to the actual real-life challenges that brought us to this situation,” he said. “I would say the month we’ve spent relocating a golf tournament is not even on the radar of and shouldn’t be in the narrative of what is happening in real life.”
