2022 Genesis Invitational leaderboard: Joaquin Niemann leads with stars all over the place at Riviera

Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas all shot -4 or better as they chase Niemann

The best week of the PGA Tour's West Coast swing got off to a banger of a start with multiple major champions dotting the leaderboard and Riviera Country Club living up to its billing. One of the better (and perhaps more underrated) ball strikers in the world leads a crew of several more of them after the first round. Let's take a look at what went down at Riv on Thursday.

Joaquin Niemann (-8): Three strokes better than the rest of the field and nearly two of those came from tee to green. Niemann hit the top of his ceiling on Thursday and showed just how extraordinarily high it is. Because he's been out on the PGA Tour for so long, we think of him being a lot older than he actually is (23), but on a resume that is good but not great, a lights-out win at Riviera over a Masters-like field would do wonders. He has the goods to do it. Now he just has to hang on until the end.