As winter winds down, it’s only natural to start thinking about spring. On the PGA Tour, winter means playing in Pebble Beach, or somewhere in Florida and California. Must be nice. Envious thoughts aside, this weekend the PGA Tour heads to Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California for the Genesis Open. What a better time for the first edition of “Tour Talk” than for the potentially field so far in 2017.

Tiger Woods may have withdrew from this tournament due to his ongoing back issues, but that doesn’t mean much as to the quality of play we should expect over the next four days. Everyone is tuning up for The Masters in April and this is one of the first major-quality fields of the young season. In order to properly size up the field for a tournament like this, we’ll have to look at the previous few tournaments and expert picks for this tournament before I get into my picks for the weekend.

Easily the story of the 2017 season, aside from the annual Tiger comeback attempt, has been the dominance of the younger players on tour. The past seven tournaments have been won by a player in his 20’s, which should signal that the PGA Tour is undergoing a talent renaissance of sorts. This has been a bit of a changing of the guard as these former amateur stars are finding their footing on the big stage.

Obviously we know about the incredible success of guys like Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlory (who is out with a rib injury), but that is just the top of the group of young bucks running wild over the PGA. Justin Thomas has already nabbing two tournament wins, Jon Rahm and Hideki Matsuyama have each won a title of their own. The question around the tour is can this streak continue at Riviera?

Well if you ask the experts, the answer is a resounding no, but all of their eggs seem to be in one basket. The smart money is on Dustin Johnson this weekend. Johnson has played incredible at this course over the years despite not having a tournament win. He has five top-five finishes at Riviera since 2010 and is coming off a third place finish last week at Pebble Beach. In addition to having a great chance of winning this tournament for the first time in his career, Johnson could also overtake Jason Day for the top spot in the world rankings. So you can see why the experts are seeing the Genesis open trending towards a Johnson win this weekend.

Another pick that’s a little less popular among the experts is Adam Scott. He is a former champion at Riviera, winning in 2005, and also finished second in this tournament last year. I have some doubts though considering that this is Scott’s first appearance on tour this year.

I definitely give some credence to the experts being on Johnson this week, but let’s take a quick look at how Las Vegas views the field. Johnson has the second-best odds at 8-1, while future tour kingpin Jordan Speith is the overwhelming favorite at 15-2. Scott is a little further down the list as a 22-1 shot to win this weekend. Other notable players favored in this tournament are world #1 Jason Day (14-1), Hideki Matsuyama (10-1), and defending champion Bubba Watson (33-1).

Now that we’ve seen where the experts and Vegas see the field, lets get to my picks for this weekend. For my money, I like Matsuyama this weekend. He won the Waste Management Open in Phoenix two weeks ago, and also has a chance to take over as the top ranked golfer in the world after this tournament. That is just be the start for what could be a potentially star-making 2017 for the 24-year old hailing from the land of the rising sun. Matsuyama’s putter failed him in an otherwise impressive T-4 finish at the PGA Championship last August. If he can add another win at Riviera this weekend, I would expect Matsuyama to be right there with Spieth as one of the favorites to win The Masters in a few weeks.

Don’t sleep on Spieth either, he looked locked in at Pebble Beach last weekend cruising to his first win of 2017. He is by far the best player on the green in the PGA, and when he is on its going to be tough to beat him, let alone catch him, on Sunday.

Here are the pairings and tee times for the Genesis Open. Enjoy this one folks, its shaping up to be a fantastic tournament.

That’s it for me today. I’ll be back tomorrow with another edition of “Heat Check.” Follow me on Twitter @thereal_jmooney and go like the Shooting the Moon page on Facebook.