The First Look: Barracuda Championship

With just three weeks remaining before the FedExCup Playoffs, the time is now for bubble players to author good results and improve their position on the season-long standings. The Barracuda Championship, contested at Tahoe Mountain Club (Old Greenwood) in the Reno-Tahoe region, offers a pleasant canvas.

The TOUR’s only Modified Stableford event, played opposite The Open Championship, is co-sanctioned between the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour.

Here’s how the Modified Stableford format works.

FIELD NOTES: Keith Mitchell will be the world’s highest-ranked player in the field. Mitchell, winner of The Honda Classic in 2019, has notched four top-10s this season… Chez Reavie looks to successfully defend his title from 2022. Reavie has two top-10 finishes this season, highlighted by a T4 at the Travelers Championship… Up-and-coming star Justin Suh, who topped the Korn Ferry Tour Points List last season and finished T6 in his debut at THE PLAYERS Championship, is looking to continue a string of solid play. He has missed just one cut since October… Edoardo Molinari, who will be a captain’s assistant at this fall’s Ryder Cup in Italy, is among the DP World Tour contingent in the field… From January 1 to July 1, Troy Merritt failed to make a cut in an individual event on TOUR, but he has since recorded back-to-back top-20 finishes and returns to the Barracuda Championship hoping to break through for another win, after runner-up results in both 2019 and 2020… Other TOUR winners in action include Joel Dahmen, Cameron Champ, and past Barracuda Championship winners Erik van Rooyen and Richy Werenski.

Highest-ranked players in the field

SPONSOR EXEMPTIONS: Rico Hoey is hoping to parlay some of his recent Korn Ferry Tour success onto the PGA TOUR. Hoey, who has secured his first TOUR card for 2024 via four top-three finishes on the Korn Ferry Tour – including a win at the Visit Knoxville Open – will make his second career PGA TOUR start… Sam Bennett looks to continue his streak of good play since turning pro earlier this year after a low-amateur result at the Masters. Bennett is teeing it up for the seventh time on TOUR this year and has missed just one cut… Frenchman Bastien Amat will tee it up at his first non-major PGA TOUR event, after earning his way into the U.S. Open at LACC. Amat just wrapped up his junior year at the University of New Mexico. He was the Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year… Ethan Cairns will make his PGA TOUR debut. Cairns, a Coker College alum, won the 2023 Reno Open to earn a spot in the field. He drew inspiration for that victory from his hometown NHL team, the plucky Florida Panthers, who advanced to the Stanley Cup Final… Ben Carr, who finished runner-up at the 2022 U.S. Amateur, will tee it up. Carr, who just completed his fifth year at Georgia Southern, played both the Masters and the U.S. Open this year – finding the weekend at LACC. Carr was named the 2022-23 Sun Belt Conference Golfer of the Year… Matt Ryan, a California native who went to Fresno State University, will play the Barracuda Championship on a sponsor exemption for the second straight year.

STORYLINES: The Barracuda Championship, like the Barbasol Championship, is contested as a co-sanctioned event between the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour… The Modified Stableford scoring format features eight points for an albatross, five points for an eagle, and two points for a birdie. For a full explanation on the format, click here… Following the Barracuda Championship, only two events remain before the FedExCup Playoffs… Winners at the Tahoe-area tournament have run the gamut from veteran breakthroughs like Chris Stroud in 2017 (after 290 starts) to buzzy stars announcing their TOUR arrivals like Collin Morikawa in 2019.

FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 FedExCup points.

COURSE: Tahoe Mountain Club (Old Greenwood), par 71, 7,480 yards. This is the fourth year for Old Greenwood to play host to the Barracuda Championship. The course, which opened in 2004, features rolling hills, numerous bunkers and large greens. With the course set at over 6,000 feet above sea level, there are plenty of opportunities for long hitters to get even longer.

The course had to remove more than 500 inches of snowfall this winter – the most in the area since 1952.

72-HOLE RECORD: +50, Erik Van Rooyen

18-HOLE RECORD: +22, Kyle Reifers (Round 4, 2015), Chad Campbell (Round 3, 2018).

LAST TIME: Chez Reavie won for the third time on the PGA TOUR, capturing the 2022 Barracuda Championship by one point (as the event uses the Modified Stableford format) after a six-point Sunday. Reavie was six points ahead entering the final round but a windy closing frame at the Tahoe Mountain Club led Reavie to make just four birdies against two bogeys. Alex Noren’s 14-point Sunday was the round of the day. He finished second to Reavie – the only two players to earn more than 40 points for the week. Martin Laird (38 points) finished third, while Mark Hubbard (37) finished fourth. Scott Gutschewski (35 points) rounded out the top five.

Television: Thursday-Sunday, 5 p.m.-8 p.m. ET (Golf Channel)