SAN DIEGO – The forecast was terrible; players and caddies alike prepared for the worst.

When they got something short of that, some built a case that they were in fact lucky.

Such were the mental gymnastics among those who played their way up the leaderboard in the first round of The Genesis Invitational at Torrey Pines' South Course, where the weather was pea soup, a car wash, and a cry for fresh lens wipes. It was also a mind game.

Yes, the rain necessitated preferred lies, but the situation wasn’t completely unmanageable.

“It was chillier yesterday,” said solo leader Denny McCarthy, who birdied holes 15 and 17 and eagled the 18th to shoot 4-under 68. “A little rainier, a little windier and (the wind) was out of a similar direction. … I think (the pro-am) was good preparation for today.”

McCarthy hates being restricted by having to play in a jacket, as he did Wednesday, so he went with just a base layer underneath his collared short-sleeve shirt Thursday. He made 102 feet of putts, led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, and was the solo leader by one.

It hardly seemed coincidental that the guys tied for second, Seamus Power and Patrick Rodgers, who played in the same threesome and each shot 69, also won the mental battle.

“This doesn’t look so bad,” Power said as they stood on the first tee.

Rodgers, in relating this anecdote, admitted he wondered what the Irishman was talking about. But then he reconsidered. What if, counterintuitively, the conditions could help him?

“I drove it really nicely, but I stayed really present, just tried to take it one shot at a time,” said Rodgers, who turned pro out of Stanford in 2014 and is still chasing his first PGA TOUR win. “Sounds super cliché; I think it's easier to do with crappy weather because you're just trying to get back under the umbrella or get the heated mitts back on or whatever.”

Power, a two-time PGA TOUR winner who finished T17 at the WM Phoenix Open, said of all the conundrums Thursday, two were especially vexing. The first was hitting the fairways. (Power hit eight of 14, while Rodgers hit nine.) And the second was keeping the ball from spinning back off the front of the green, especially from said fairways.

“The trickiest part of the day, which I wouldn't have expected, is they put a lot of pins in higher spots,” Power said. “With the softness of the greens, it was difficult to get short-irons and wedges close to the hole, tough to take enough spin off it.”

Collin Morikawa, who like McCarthy said the miserable weather Wednesday prepared him for the marginally less terrible stuff Thursday, shot a 1-over 73 that amounted to a draw.

“Could have been better,” Morikawa said. “Could have been a lot worse.”

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler made four birdies in his first seven holes and was cruising at 3-under when his drive found the left rough at the par-4 14th. He did well to save bogey, made a frustrating three-putt par on 18, and settled for a 2-under 70.

“I felt like I did a lot of good stuff out there,” he said, on “a pretty challenging day.”

Just 13 of the 72 players broke par. Rory McIlroy, coming off a win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am two weeks ago, hit just two fairways in his first nine holes, the back nine, but steadied himself and was one of six players at even-par 72, four back.

It wasn’t just that some players struggled; it was the quality of the players who struggled.

Thomas Detry, coming off a runaway victory at the WM Phoenix Open, shot 76. Rasmus Højgaard, T12 at TPC Scottsdale, went 6 over for his first six holes and shot 82. Jason Day, twice a winner of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey, shot 76. Matthieu Pavon, who won the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open, was 8 over through 12 and shot 79.

Meanwhile, those who still have a realistic shot at winning walked away thinking this was the most fun they wouldn’t necessarily want to do all over again. (Friday forecast: morning rain.)

“I think it's interesting,” said Scheffler, who added that he saw improvements from last week’s T25 at the WM Phoenix Open. “The only other time we really see weather like this would be The Open Championship and I guess when I practice in Dallas.

“Overall, I think it's fun,” he added. “It's a different test and I like the variety.”

Fun? Not so bad? You can’t argue with the results. Perhaps with bad-weather golf, as in “Hamlet,” there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.