Poston tied for 21st at the RSM Classic last year.
The final official PGA Tour event of 2023 is here as a number of players looking to make a last-second FedEx Cup standings push are in St. Simons Island, Georgia, for the 2023 RSM Classic at Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course.
Adam Svensson, who’s made four of four cuts during the FedEx Cup Fall, returns to the site of his lone PGA Tour win as the defending champion. The Canadian sits at +3500 (35/1) to repeat.
Other players in the field include European Ryder Cupper Ludvig Aberg, Russell Henley, Brian Harman, Corey Conners, and Cameron Young.
Aberg — the betting favorite at +1400 (14/1) — has tied for second (lost in a playoff), 13th and 10th in three starts this fall.
Golf course
Sea Island Golf Club’s Seaside Course | Par 70 | 7,005 yards
Patrick Rodgers putts on the 14th green as the Tall Ship Lynx passes behind at Sea Island Resort Seaside Course on November 19, 2022, in St Simons Island, Georgia. (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
The win is the fifth of his PGA Tour career and first since the 2014 Wyndham Championship.
Just over three years after his 22-month-old daughter died from cancer, Camilo Villegas won for the first time on the PGA Tour in more than nine years.
“My little one up there, she’s watching,” he said during a post-round interview on Golf Channel. “She’s where she needs to be after a long fight.”
The 41-year-old native of Colombia closed in 6-under 65 at Port Royal Golf Course on Sunday to clip Sweden’s Alex Noren by two strokes and win the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in Southampton, Bermuda, his first victory in 3,374 days at the 2014 Wyndham Championship.
Villegas, who once reached as high as No. 7 in the world and had dipped to No. 752 at the beginning of this month, had not recorded a top-10 finish since the 2021 Honda Classic before receiving a sponsor exemption into the World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico and finishing T-2 to earn his way into this week’s event.
Prior to last week, he had planned to compete at second stage of Q-School, a tournament he hadn’t needed to play since 2004. Villegas had struggled with injuries, including shoulder surgeries, in recent years and ranked 223rd in the FedEx Cup standings before his strong performance in Mexico. In August, he did a tryout as a TV commentator on the Golf Channel.
“As a competitor, as a golfer, you never want to be done,” he told Golfweek ahead of his debut.
In February, he began working with instructor Jose Campra, who also caddies for pro Sebastian Munoz, on a major swing overhaul and Villegas had seen signs of progress.
“He told me when we started, you know what, I think you’re going to win again on the PGA Tour,” Villegas recalled. “I’m not sure I believed him, to be honest, but here we are.”
He added: “Nine years, where you kind of stop believing at times, but I never stopped waking up early and putting in the work.”
“She was always a little monkey around the gym, and I noticed she wasn’t being the little monkey she always was,” he said in June 2020. “I don’t know why, I just kind of got a bad feeling…You don’t need 10 doctors to tell you the good news.”
Since Mia’s death, he and wife Maria have devoted their energy into Mia’s Miracles, a foundation they formed to help other families dealing with pediatric cancer.
“My wife has been so busy with Mia’s Miracles – it’s become her mission in life – doing all this great stuff to change our kind of sad story to a positive to help others,” Villegas said last week.
The Villegas’s welcomed son Mateo in late 2021. Father and son dressed up for Halloween as police officers and mom was a bank robber. Young Mateo also wore a Spider-Man costume to a Halloween party, an homage to his father who frequently stretched out on all fours to study his putts near grass-level and earned the Spider-Man nickname.
Despite his prolonged slump, Villegas enjoyed the challenge of Spider-Man’s return, tattooing the words ‘positive energy’ on his right wrist and ‘attitude’ on his left.
“There’s a lot of things you can’t control in life, but I guess these two you can,” he said. “The game comes and bites you, so, I’ve been trying to let the game be the game and let my mind be calm and at peace. It’s been pretty good the last couple weeks, so let’s keep it going.”
On Sunday, the wind, which is the main defense at Port Royal, shifted directions and blew the hardest it had all week out of the west but it didn’t bother Villegas. He reeled off three birdies in a row starting at the third, including a 25-footer at No. 4. Noren, the overnight leader, kept pace with a birdie at No. 6 but made bogeys at nine and 10, his first since the fifth hole of the first round on Thursday and just his second and third bogeys all week. He shot 68 and finished second for the third time on Tour. Villegas clung to the lead, answering with birdies at 15 and 17, to finish with a 72-hole total of 24-under 260. It marked his fifth career Tour title and his ninth consecutive round in the 60s, the most in his career. He had played a total of 8,496 holes since his previous victory.
“I felt the energy building up,” he said. “To everyone who has supported me on my journey, I just want to say thanks.”
Alex Noren has 11 international wins, he has played in the Ryder Cup and he has represented Sweden at the Olympics. But come Sunday, he’ll have a chance to do something he has never done before — win on the PGA Tour.
After rounds of 61-66 over the first two days, Noren shot a 4-under 67 around Port Royal Golf Course on Saturday and holds a one-shot lead at the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship with 18 holes to play.
The Swede, who tied for third at the Shriners Children’s Open a month ago in Las Vegas, kept the bogeys off the card during his third round. Despite only hitting eight fairways (T-43 in the field), Noren was crisp with his irons, missing just four greens (T-12).
In 27 previous starts this season, Noren has six top-25 finishes and three top-10s. His last worldwide win came at the 2018 HNA Open de France.
If you missed any of the action on Saturday, no worries, we have you covered. Here are some takeaways from the third round of the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal.
Here’s what you need to know from the second day of the Butterfield Bermuda Championship.
It’s time for the weekend in Bermuda.
The second round of the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship is (almost) complete, as three groups remain on the course before the round will officially be completed.
However, the name at the top is the same as it was after the first round.
Alex Noren has had a stellar start at Port Royal Golf Club in Southampton, and he takes the lead into the weekend after setting a tournament scoring record through 36 holes. It’s also his best 36-hole start on the PGA Tour.
However, chasing him are numerous golfers looking to secure their cards for next year and those looking for their first victory, too.
“I was just coming out to shake the rust off and have a good time today and I guess I did.”
The PGA Tour is visiting the eastern tip of the North Atlantic Ocean and the infamous Bermuda Triangle, which is best known as a place where planes, ships and people are alleged to have gone mysteriously missing. But this week at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, it is where a lot of veterans are finding their game.
None more so than Sweden’s Alex Noren, who made a tournament-record 11 birdies in calm conditions Thursday morning at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda. Noren tied the course record with a 10-under 61 and set his personal low 18-hole scoring mark in 510 official stroke-play rounds on the Tour en route to grabbing a two-stroke lead over four golfers when play was suspended during the first round due to darkness with nine players left to complete the round.
“It was a long time ago I had like a really low round, you know, lower than maybe 5, 6 under, so I feel good,” Noren said. “That was pretty much the closest I’ve got to the hole in a very, very long time.”
That included finishing the day in style by stuffing his approach inside a foot for his third birdie in his final four holes. Noren, for one, hopes that the trademark wind at Port Royal, which is the course’s main defense, will pick up as the tournament continues.
“I like the wind,” Noren said. “If it’s not windy, it’s like you’ve got to keep these unbelievable low rounds up and it’s not that easy.”
It’s been a bit of a struggle this season for the 41-year-old Noren. He has 10 career wins on the DP World Tour and once ranked as high as No. 8 in the world but remains winless in 162 career starts on the PGA Tour. He’s dipped to 62nd in the world and recorded just three top-10 finishes this season.
“It’s been a weird year,” he said, but he’s trending in the right direction after a T-3 at the Shriners Children’s Open last month.
Weird would be a kind description for the season to date for Robert Garrigus. He’s missed the cut in all eight of his PGA Tour starts this season and 15 in a row. But on Thursday, he signed for a bogey-free 8-under 63.
“My putting, it was just as good as I think I’ve putted in, I don’t know, 5 years,” he said.
Garrigus, 45, was a late addition into the tournament, flying to Bermuda figuring he’d enjoy a vacation if he failed to get a spot.
“Just knowing that I was playing in a tournament like gave me a little juice,” he said. “I was just coming out to shake the rust off and have a good time today and I guess I did. It was a lot of fun.”
He’s tied for second with D.J. Trahan, Vincent Whaley, and Dylan Wu. Whaley, 28, ranked No. 222 in the FedEx Cup standings during the regular season and is making just his 13th start this season as he battled back from a right wrist injury he suffered two years ago at the RBC Canadian Open. He said he’s finally healthy again. That and a coaching change to Cameron McCormick before the FedEx Cup Fall began has helped him make four straight cuts and shoot his career-low on Tour on Thursday.
“I grew up working with him in Dallas and kind of got back into it, and it’s been great,” Whaley said.
Trahan, 42, last won on Tour in 2008 and started the week at No. 214 in the FedEx Cup standings. He made four birdies in a row starting at the fourth hole, but it was a par at 16 that made his day.
“It was the best par on a par-3 I ever had in my life,” he declared. “I hit the worst tee shot and then I chipped it down in the bunker, it was about the best I could do, and then I holed it out of the bunker. But it was such a circus show.”
There was also a Tour record set on Thursday. Veteran pro Adam Long hit his 60th straight fairway when he found the short grass on his second hole, a par-5, after going 56-for-56 last week at the World Wide Technology Championship, shattering Brian Claar’s record of 59 straight fairways hit, set in 1992. Long’s streak dated to his final two holes at the Shriners Children’s Open and finally came to an end with 69 when he misfired at No. 15 at Port Royal.
“The one that missed, it was a 3-wood that I kind of hit up in the air a little too spinny and the wind caught it. Didn’t quite go far enough so it stayed in the rough,” Long said. “Made Thursday a little more exciting than usual.”
After the year’s final men’s major championship, the PGA Tour is back stateside for the 2023 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota.
Tony Finau, who has missed the cut in two straight starts including last week’s Open, enters as the defending champion. He beat Emiliano Grillo and Sungjae Im by three shots last season.
Justin Thomas has fallen to 24th in the Official World Golf Ranking and 75th in the FedEx Cup Standings. In a last-second push to make the playoffs — and to make Ryder Cup Captain Zach Johnson’s job easier for Rome — Thomas is making his 3M Open debut. In his last six starts, Thomas has missed four cuts, tied for 60th at the Genesis Scottish Open and for ninth at the Travelers Championship. The top 70 players in the point standings make it to the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis (Aug. 10-13).
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Golf course
TPC Twin Cities | Par 71 | 7,431 yards
The second hole at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota. (Photo: David Berding-USA TODAY Sports)
Course history
#3MOpen field history at TPC Twin Cities since 2019.
-Includes average finish position and Strokes Gained average per round. Players are sorted by SG: Total.
-For downloadable sheets each week, get access to all of my data charts, models and analysis here:… pic.twitter.com/tKPXlNQle8
The DP World Tour’s rankings prize is up for grabs.
Following Friday’s second round at the 2022 DP World Tour Championship, Jon Rahm felt as if he left a couple shots on the course during his 6-under performance.
On Saturday, his thoughts couldn’t have been more different.
“I don’t think I could have shot any lower today. Maximized the round,” Rahm said. “Wasn’t my best off the tee, but I was able to actually get some birdies out of some not so good situations. I didn’t hit any of the fairways on the par 5s and still played them 3-under par.”
Rahm fired a 7-under 65 on moving day to nab the lead at 15 under for the tournament heading into the final round. He trailed 36-hole leaders Matt Fitzpatrick and Tyrrell Hatton by four shots before the third round, but now those two are chasing the Spaniard.
Ranked fifth in the world, Rahm had seven birdies and no bogeys at Jumeirah Golf Estates on Saturday. He leads Fitzpatrick, who shot 2 under, by one and Alex Noren by two. Hatton and Rory McIlroy are T-4 at 12 under, three back. McIlroy matched Rahm with a 7-under performance.
As it stands, McIlroy is projected to win the DP World Tour points standings. There remains plenty of fluidity in the points race with 18 holes to go, but it’s clear what McIlroy’s goal is.
“It’s really cool, I’ve got to this stage in the game over 15 years as a pro, and I’m still trying to do things for the first time,” McIlroy said. “I’ve never won the FedEx Cup and this tour’s rankings in the same year, so it would be really nice.
“It’s been a wonderful year. I’ve played some really, really great golf and really consistent golf. If I’m able to go out there tomorrow and shoot a good score and get the job done, it would be a really nice way to end what’s been a great year.”
Fitzpatrick, projected second in the standings, could nab the title with a victory as long as McIlroy doesn’t finish solo second.
However, those two are both chasing Rahm heading to Sunday in Dubai.
“I’m hoping come tomorrow I can be a little better off the tee, and still keep the good iron play and good putting going,” Rahm said.
Both Noren and Wise have plenty they want to improve on after the first round.
HOUSTON – Based off Aaron Wise’s attitude following his opening 18 holes, one would’ve thought he performed poorly during the first round of the 2022 Cadence Bank Houston Open.
He was less than enthralled after his round at Memorial Park Golf Course on Thursday, which was a brilliant bogey-free 5-under 65 to take the lead following the morning wave. Wise, whose lone PGA Tour win came in the state of Texas at the AT&T Byron Nelson in 2017, is tied with Alex Noren, Tony Finau and Tyson Alexander at the top.
“I’ve just been in a weird place with my game where I’m obviously playing well enough to shoot good scores, but there’s just a couple shots a round that are frustrating me,” Wise said. “Maybe it’s also just because it’s late in the season and I played too much golf, and that’s just kind of how golf gets.
“I have time to go clean some stuff up before the round tomorrow and hopefully play a little more solid, even though I would take the score again if you would give it to me.”
The first round was suspended because of darkness at 5:36 p.m. local time. The groups who didn’t finish will complete their rounds early Friday morning.
The highlight for Wise came on holes No. 3-6, when he recorded four straight birdies to move to 5 under. He started on No. 10, making seven pars before a birdie on the par-3 17th.
“I had a couple great saves to shoot bogey-free,” Wise said. “Sometimes you shoot bogey-free and you hit 18 greens, and it was just an easy round. Today, it was bogey-free on the card, but it didn’t feel stress-free.”
For Noren, his round started and ended the same way: with a birdie. He also started on the 10th hole, where he stuffed his approach shot inside six feet for a circle on the scorecard. He then had four birdies in five holes to begin his second nine after a bogey on the first, and Noren capitalized his day with a great tee shot on the par-3 ninth, drilling an eight-foot birdie to get to 5 under.
Alex Noren lines up a putt on the 13th green during the first round of the Cadence Bank Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course on November 10, 2022 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Logan Riely/Getty Images)
Noren, who has 11 international victories but none on the PGA Tour, also wasn’t feeling his best coming into the week.
“A little bit nervous coming into today,” Noren said. “Didn’t feel great in practice but found something and got the irons a lot better. So yeah, good.”
Finau teed off in the afternoon wave, and he did most of his damage on his final nine holes. He had five birdies on the front nine, but the exclamation point came on the par-3 ninth, when he sank a 35-foot, 5-inch putt for birdie to tie Noren and Wise.
Coming off a missed cut in his first event of the fall slate last week, the closing birdie was a great finish to Finau’s first round.
“I know I played well just to put myself near the top of the leaderboard. and it’s kind of just icing on the cake on a day that’s hard fought and well played,” Finau said.
Tony Finau plays his shot from the ninth tee during the first round of the Cadence Bank Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course on November 10, 2022 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Alexander is a part of the group tied for the lead, though he hasn’t finished his first round. He will start from the rough left of the 18th fairway with a 197-yard shot left for his second on the par-4 closing hole.
The group on top has a one-shot lead over David Lipsky and seven others, including Mackenzie Hughes, who won earlier this season at the Sanderson Farms Championship.
Lipsky had five birdies and no bogeys to go out in 30, but he proceeded to bogey the 10th hole before making eight straight pars to finish his round. He also hasn’t won on Tour.
“Took advantage of the birdie holes on the front nine and hung in there pretty well on the back nine,” Lipsky said. “I think there was a stretch where I missed like three greens in a row, got them all up and down.”
There’s a large group at 3 under, including Justin Rose and Zecheng Dou, who finished on top of the Korn Ferry Tour standings to earn his PGA Tour card this summer.
Scottie Scheffler, the No. 2 golfer in the world and favorite coming in, birdied three of his final eight holes to finish at even-par 70. Amateur Travis Vick, a senior at Texas who missed the cut last week in Mexico, shot 2-under 68 and is T-21.
However, the packed leaderboard is chasing Finau, Noren and Wise. And on a course where the winning 72-hole scores have been 13 under and 10 under since returning to Memorial Park, getting off to a fast start is pivotal for success come the weekend.
“I’m anxious to get that next win,” Wise said. “I got one, but it feels like forever ago now. It’s one of those things where you’ve just got to stay patient. Like, I can’t control if I’m going to go out and win this tournament, right? I can only control how good a shot I’m going to hit, how good a putt I’m going to hit. So I’m just going to focus on that and then at the end of the week just tally them up and see where it ends up.”
Chez Reavie adds the Barracuda Championship to his PGA Tour resume.
TRUCKEE, Calif. — After several lead changes on the back nine, Chez Reavie clamped down when he needed to and emerged as the champion.
Reavie picked up his third win on the PGA Tour when he took the Barracuda Championship on Sunday at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood golf course.
Reavie finished plus-43 points after picking up 6 in Sunday’s final round. He edged Alex Noren, who was second with plus-42.
Reavie, 40, is the oldest player won in the PGA Tour this year. This was his third career win on the Tour. He also had the lead after three rounds in his two previous wins.
Reavie had plus-37 points after Saturday’s round, but struggled a bit on his front nine Sunday.
He said staying patient was the key.
“I knew I was going to have to. I knew some guys were going to make a lot of birdies early. I was hoping to be one of those guys, but the putter was kind of letting me down early,” Reavie said. “Just tried to keep it as close as I could to the hole and give myself some good looks.”
Chez Reavie kisses the championship trophy after winning the 2022 Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mt. Club’s Old Greenwood in Truckee, California. (Photo: Tom R. Smedes/Special to Reno Gazette-Journal)
Reavie said he didn’t look at the score until after the first nine, but then started checking every other hole.
He picked up 300 points in the standings and moved up to 49th in the FedEx Cup rankings with the win. He also won $666,000 for his efforts.
He also won the 2008 RBC Canadian Open and the Travelers Championship in 2019.
Noren scored 14 points on Sunday. He was making his 132nd PGA Tour start and was trying to become the Barracuda’s sixth straight first-time winner.
Noren, from Stockholm, Sweden, turned 40 last week. He had been the first alternate at the British Open, but decided to play in the Barracuda, thinking nobody would drop out at St. Andrews.
He said the Old Greenwood course was a little tricky Sunday as the wind picked up early and held steady most of the day
“It’s been a roller coaster of a week, obviously, but when you make the cut, you think, well, this is a great week anyway, and then I played good on the weekend and had a blast,” Noren said. “If it was another tournament, I might not have gone there, but I just love this week, and I wanted to have a vacation at home with the kids before the Playoffs start. I wanted to be able to grab some points, either at the Open or here. I didn’t want to just sit out the Open and then having to add a week.”
Martin Laird was third with plus-38 points; Mark Hubbard took fourth with plus-37 and Scott Gutschewski was fifth with plus-35.
Reavie is the first player 40 or older to win on the PGA Tour since Lucas Glover at the 2021 John Deere Classic.
He finished 43rd last year at the Barracuda and his best finish in the event was 42nd in 2009.
The Barracuda went to the Modified Stableford scoring system in 2012.
This was Laird’s best finish of the season.
He played with Reavie on Sunday and said the wind gusts made it a little tougher than earlier in the week.
Both Reavie and Laird said they plan to play in the 3M tournament in Minnesota this week.
Laird said getting away form the golf course for a while earlier in the week paid off for him.
“I feel like my game has been pretty good for a while. It was funny this week, my family has been out and I’ve literally not done any practice, just had a very relaxed week and had my best week of the year. There’s a lot to be said for that,” Laird said. “Sometimes we kind of get stuck in a rut and almost try and practice our way out of it, and sometimes it’s the opposite; you just need to kind of get away. I’m kind of going to take that philosophy the next few week and just kind of be a lot more relaxed and go and enjoy it.”
It was his first time playing at Old Greenwood.
“I really enjoyed the old venue, but this Old Greenwood golf course is fantastic. It’s a really good fun golf course for this format, so look forward to coming back,” he said.
What about 2023?
The dates for next year’s Barracuda have not been set. This is the last year on the current contract with Barracuda as the tournament title sponsor.
Tournament director Chris Hoff told the Reno Gazette-Journal that negotiations are ongoing and he said it is likely that Barracuda will return as the title sponsor.
“We’re in renewal talks with them right now,” Hoff said. “We’re optimistic and they’ve had a great time this week and the last nine years have been incredible.”
The deal to hold the tournament at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood course runs through 2023.
In August 2021, it was announced that from 2022 onward, the event would become a co-sanctioned event with the European Tour.
Scoring
The Barracuda Championship is employing the Modified Stableford scoring format, the first PGA Tour event to use the format since The International in 2006. Players are allocated points based on the number of strokes taken at each hole with the goal of achieving the highest overall score. Albatross +8, Eagle +5, Birdie +2, Par 0, Bogey -1, Double bogey or worse -3. It’s the only PGA Tour event to use the scoring format.
Streak broken
The last six winners of the Barracuda Championship were first-time PGA Tour winners.
Alex Noren: “Golf is a long career, and I’ve played a lot of British Opens, and I’ll get to play it again.”
TRUCKEE, Calif. — Chez Reavie continues to tear up the golf course, and Alex Noren has some added incentive this week.
Reavie leads the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship with plus-37 points at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood course, where they are using the Modified Stableford scoring system.
Martin Laird is next with plus-31 and Noren is tied with Cam Davis, both at plus-28 points.
But Noren was oh-so-close to playing in the year’s final men’s major, the British Open at St. Andrews.
Noren had been the first alternate for the British Open, but decided to fly to California to play in the Barracuda instead.
“I didn’t think anybody would withdraw,” Noren said Friday. “They actually did, and sad for them, but also I wanted to play this.”
When Justin Rose withdrew from the Open, that opened a spot that would have gone to Noren. Instead that spot went to Rikuya Hoshino. Erik van Rooyen, who won the Barracuda in 2021 to earn a spot in the 2022 Open Championship, also withdrew before the Open started.
“I wanted to get some more points. I’ve got three weeks of training after this before the [FexEx Cup] playoffs, and I wanted to play this week, and maybe that mindset made me have a little less patience that I needed this time. Golf is a long career, and I’ve played a lot of British Opens, and I’ll get to play it again.”
Noren tried to forget about what might have been and simply went to work at Old Greenwood, posting a score of plus-28 points through three rounds.
He admits it’s hard to escape the British Open, because it’s on TVs everywhere he goes around Truckee.
He said being contention in the Barracuda, somewhat eases the pain of missing The Open.
“Every time they show ‘The Open’ on TV, I get frustrated, but I love coming here. I think it’s one of the best courses on the Tour and a great tournament. It’s very enjoyable to play,” Noren said.
Noren, 40, is ranked No. 66 in the world, No. 75 in the FedEx Cup rankings.
Reavie, meanwhile, had his first bogey of the Barracuda on No. 15 on Saturday, this after he had five birdies in the third round. He said he expects to feel some nervousness on Sunday, while he waits for his afternoon tee time.
“I have to spend an hour or two at home just calming myself down because I’m so looking forward to coming out here and competing,” Reavie said. “I can come out here and try too hard if I get too excited.”
Reavie, who played golf at Arizona State, is one of only two PGA Tour golfers from that school who have not defected to the LIV Tour, along with John Rahm. Fellow former ASU golfers Phil Mickelson, Paul Casey, Pat Perez and Matt Jones have all jumped to the LIV.
Big leap
Michael Thompson had nine birdies, and nine pars, and totaled 18 points on Saturday. He has plus-26 points heading into Sunday’s final round.
Joshua Creel had two eagles on Saturday, on holes No. 8 and 16 and picked up 11 points on the day. He has plus -26 points through three rounds.
Harry Higgs also earned 11 points on Saturday, thanks to three birdies and an eagle. He is at plus-26 points heading into Sunday. Higgs said he is better off if he can avoid chipping.
“I’ve hit a lot of good iron shots and holed some kind of bonus putts. The first day I just hit a few balls just into a spot where I had to chip out,” Higgs said. “But this format is kind of fun. You can kind of get away with that.”
He enjoys the feeling of smashing the ball on his tee shots and watching it fly farther than it does at most golf courses he plays at.
“It’s fun when it gets in the fairways, too; you can hit a long, long way out here, bouncing and rolling and flying a little further with the altitude,” Higgs said.
Higgs said he has not played well this season and is worrying too much about the little things going wrong.
“I’ve just not been sharp, not been playing good golf, not been kind of playing like myself,” he said. “My attitude has been horrible. I’ve been pissing and moaning about little things that go wrong and then that builds and builds and builds. Been playing on the cut line way too much all year. I view myself as much, much better than that. But obviously there comes a time where talk is cheap and you’re now going to have to show it, more so to myself.”
Scoring
The Barracuda Championship is employing the Modified Stableford scoring format, the first PGA Tour event to use the format since The International in 2006. Players are allocated points based on the number of strokes taken at each hole with the goal of achieving the highest overall score.
Albatross +8, Eagle +5, Birdie +2, Par 0, Bogey -1, Double bogey or worse -3.
