The PGA Tour also carries on this week as it visits the Old Greenwood course at Tahoe Mountain Club for the 2024 Barracuda Championship. Designed by Jack Nicklaus and opened in 2004, Old Greenwood will play as a Par 71, 7,480 yard layout this week.
The Barracuda is an opposite field event, as it is being held opposite The Open Championship. Because of that, the field is starkly different than most weeks on tour, as young up and comers, career journeymen and the best of the best who came up just short of qualifying for The Open take to the California mountains to play 72 holes of golf following the Modified Stableford scoring system. What the fuck is Modified Stableford? Well, I’m glad you asked. Stableford golf is a scoring system for golf where essentially, par is irrelevant. Rather than tracking your strokes versus par, Stableford awards you an amount of points for the number of strokes you take per hole. In this event, the Modified Stableford scoring system will be as follows: an albatross is worth +8 points, a birdies is worth +5 points, a birdie is worth +2 points, a par is worth 0 points, a bogey is worth -1 and a double bogey or worse is worth -3. Because of that, players will want to have the highest positive score versus the highest negative score. With winning score being +40 or higher nearly every year, players will be looking to make birdies in bunches this week. Playing roughly 6,000 feet above sea level, long hitters will thrive even more than usual, as the ball will undoubtedly carry further in this altitude. Having the long ball in your arsenal is definitely an advantage this week, but you still gotta score. With large, sloping greens, players should be able to hit these greens with their eyes closed this week. However, with sloping lies and strategically placed bunkers, golfers can very easily be penalized for an errant shot and lose ground on the field. In a birdie fest like this event is, you gotta keep your foot on the gas, because in this case, par will get you nothing. You gotta be bold, take aim at these pins and make your birdie putts to keep yourself in it. And lastly, with the majority of the studs playing across the pond, there will likely be a lot of young, inexperienced players on the leaderboard come Sunday. Managing your emotions, keeping yourself in the moment and not letting the pressure get to you will be even more important coming down the stretch. A possibly career changing week will be within somebody’s grasp. The only blank left to fill in is who will it be.
The Barracuda Championship was first held in 1999 and has produced an intriguing list of winners over the years, with young studs earning their first career victory and career lifers picking up a victory late in the twilight of their PGA Tour career. Past winners of the Barracuda Championship include Notah Begay III, Scott Verplank, John Cook, Chris Riley, Kirk Triplett, Vaughn Taylor, Will MacKenzie, Steve Flesch, Parker McLachlin, John Rollins, Matt Bettencourt, Scott Piercy, J. J. Henry, Gary Woodland, Geoff Ogilvy, Chris Stroud, Andrew Putnam, Collin Morikawa, Richy Werenski, Erik Van Rooyen, Chez Reavie and Akshay Bhatia, just to name a few.
Vaughn Taylor and J. J. Henry are the only players to win this event more than once, with Taylor doing so in back-to-back years in 2005 and 2006 and Henry winning the title in both 2012 and 2015. Both of Taylor’s wins came during the stroke play era, while both of Henry’s wins came during the Modified Stableford era. This event was a stroke play event from 1999-2011 before using the Modified Stableford scoring system from 2012 to the present, so there are several scoring records to address. The 18 hole scoring record in the Modified Stableford era is +23, which was achieved by Seung Yul-Noh during the first round at Old Greenwood last season. Both the 72 hole scoring record and the 72 hole scoring record to par is 267 (-21), which was achieved by Vaughn Taylor during his victory at Montrêux Golf and Country Club in 2005. The 72 hole scoring record in the Modified Stableford era is +50, which was achieved by Erik Van Rooyen during his victory at Old Greenwood in 2021.
Last year’s edition was won by Akshay Bhatia, who birdied the final hole to force a playoff with Patrick Rodgers, which Bhatia won with a par on the first playoff hole to pick up his first career PGA Tour victory. Patrick Rodgers finished in the runner-up position, Julien Guerrier and Jens Dantorp finished T-3, three points out of a playoff, while Ryan Gerard finished in 5th place, four points behind.
Taylor Pendrith is 10th in the Power Rankings and while he has had some top 15’s in the past, I don’t see him playing super consistently this week. He didn’t have a great showing at the Rocket Mortgage a few weeks back and struggled to find that final day to keep him in the hunt. This course craves calm and consistency and I don’t think he brings it this week, unfortunately.
Dark Horse:
He is one of the most forgotten about players, but man, oh man, does he have game. Troy Merritt has had a pair of second place finishes in this event. If he can get off the tee and start solid, he will have no problem climbing the leaderboard at this event.
While he is the favorite to win this week, I think he will put up some solid golf, but not enough to take the title. Keith Mitchell didn’t make the cut at this event last year, but the way he has been playing, he is heading into this event feeling pretty good I’m sure. Keith is the favorite and will be up in the hunt for sure.
Winner:
Patrick Rodgers loves this track and he purposely took off last week to get ready for this event. He is very well matched to this course and feels very comfortable here. Every year, he has climbed his way up the leaderboard, including being runner-up last year. He has what it takes to win this event as long as his putter is hot.
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