Sunday is bound to be life changing for one PGA Tour player.
None of the top four players on the leaderboard at the 2023 Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, California, have won on Tour before. Two of them, Ryan Gerard and Akshay Bhatia, weren’t even PGA Tour members when the season began.
After Sunday’s final round, it’s likely someone hoists a trophy for the first time.
Patrick Rodgers birdied the 18th hole and earned two points in the Modified Stableford format to take a one-point lead over Gerard going into the final round. Rodgers tallied eight points in the third round and sits at 34 for the tournament. Gerard, who led after the 36 holes, struggled to garner any momentum on moving day, earning only three points and has 33 points.
“I was really super proud of the way that I was resilient and turned the round around and knew there was still a lot of points to be had,” Rodgers said. “The eagle on 12 was huge, and birdieing two of the last three was great to be in a good position going into tomorrow.”
Bhatia made a major move up the leaderboard, sitting in solo third with 31 points, courtesy of his 17-point outing. He shot 8-under 63 with six birdies and an eagle.
“I know I’m close to winning,” Bhatia said. “It’s a good feeling. Obviously finishing top 10 and gaining points and everything is important out here. But it’s just amazing the perspective you have when you just kind of wish you did certain things a little different, and I would have been pretty close to hosting that trophy last week.”
Beau Hossler, who is also searching for his first Tour victory, is in solo fourth with 30 points. Joel Dahmen is in fifth with 29.
The opposite-field event gives plenty of opportunities for someone to have a career-changing victory. The leaderboard is set up for exactly that come Sunday.
“I feel like any time that you’re in contention coming down the last round, last however many holes, you’ve got to play well to get into that situation,” Gerard said. “So just going to take that in stride and really just trust that we’re going to have some good stuff happen tomorrow and just really do my best and everything else is just an added bonus. So we’re excited to just go out there and see what happens.”
The name of the game in a Modified Stableford scoring event is big numbers and Ryan Gerard is putting up a lot of them so far this week.
Through two rounds at Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood in Truckee, California, Gerard has 16 birdies, each worth two points in the unique scoring format. Two late bogeys in Thursday’s first round cost him one point each but through 36 holes, Gerard has 30 points to lead the 2023 Barracuda Championship.
Gerard’s best finish this season is a solo fourth at the Honda Classic in February. He has made nine cuts in 14 events.
Patrick Rodgers made a late move with birdies on three of his last four holes to get to 26 points, good for second.
Vincent Norrman, a first-time Tour winner a week ago at the Barbasol Championship, like the Barracuda an opposite-field event, is playing well again this week. He has 23 points.
S.Y. Noh led after the first round with 23 points thanks to three eagles (each worth five points) to become the fourth player this season to have three eagles in one round. Friday, though, was a disastrous day at Old Greenwood for Noh, as he posted a minus-5 score after two double bogeys, a bogey and just one birdie. His Friday 75 dropped him into a tie for 10th.
The cut came in at 10 points and among those to miss out on a weekend tee time: S.H. Kim, Keith Mitchell, Harry Higgs, Greyson Sigg and Taylor Pendrith.
Coming into the week at Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood course, Beau Hossler sat 73rd in the FedEx Cup standings.
With the new rules, only the top 70 are guaranteed spots in the Playoffs. Counting this week, there’s only three events left for players like Hossler to lock up their spots in the field at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis.
After the first round of the 2023 Barracuda Championship, Hossler is doing his best to make sure he’s well inside the cut line.
Hossler, in a Modified Stableford scoring format, is +17 after the first round in Truckee, California, and sits on top of the leaderboard. The highlight of his day came on the par-3 third, when he recorded an ace for the first time in his Tour career.
“I was kind of in between clubs,” Hossler said. “I think it was like 211, but at altitude it’s playing like 190. I hit 7-iron and it landed in a good spot and it went in. It looked like it was the only hole on Tour this year that had no camera.”
In addition to his ace, Hossler also made eagle on the par-5 sixth. Two holes, +10 (as eagles are worth five points) on the scorecard and a first-round lead.
He shot 7-under 64 in stroke play with four birdies (worth two points each), the two eagles and a lone bogey (golfers lose a point for bogeys). Hossler hasn’t won in his Tour career but does have two runner-up finishes.
“My game feels probably the best it’s felt in years right now, which is good,” Hossler said. “Maybe the results haven’t quite been there the last few weeks, but I feel like I’m working on some good stuff with my golf swing. Starting to see some a lot better iron play the last probably two weeks. So, hopefully, I can keep doing that and get the putter hot.”
Alexander Levy sits second after the morning wave at +16. Carson Young and Patrick Rodgers are at +15. The Barracuda is the lone event on the Tour schedule to use the Modified Stableford scoring system.
The Barracuda Championship is the first PGA Tour event to accept cryptocurrency payments for tickets.
Celebrities got things started last week with a raucous party-type atmosphere at Edgewood Tahoe, where Tony Romo came out a winner.
Now, golf in the area gets a little more serious as PGA Tour pros arrive in Truckee, California, for the 24th Barracuda Championship.
The four-day event begins Thursday at the Tahoe Mountain Club on the Old Greenwood course.
Six former Barracuda champions are in the opposite-field event: Richy Werenski (2020), Andrew Putnam (2018), Chris Stroud (2017), Greg Chalmers (2016), JJ Henry (2012) and Scott Piercy (2011).
Local standout Ollie Osborne, a Bishop Manogue High School graduate who later played at SMU, is in the field on a sponsor exemption.
David Longmire, who won the 2022 Reno Open, a mini-tour event, in June, also earned a spot in the tournament.
One player who will not be at the Barracuda is defending champion Eric van Rooyen. He earned his first career PGA Tour win at the 2021 Barracuda Championship and that earned him a spot in the British Open this week at St. Andrews.
He became the first player with a winning score of +50 since the Modified Stableford scoring system was introduced in 2012. He is the sixth consecutive first-time winner of the Barracuda Championship but the first since Collin Morikawa in 2019 to win the tournament in his debut.
Van Rooyen’s score of +50 (+7/+17/+10/+16), set a record for the Modified Stableford format event. Geoff Ogilvy finished the 2014 Barracuda at +49.
The Barracuda is the only PGA Tour event that uses that scoring system. It’s also the only Tour stop held opposite a major championship.
The field includes 50 players from the DP World Tour.
Top players to watch
Maverick McNealy, who has top-20 finishes in back-to-back events, and is the 12-1 favorite according to Tipico. McNealy ranks third in eagles, 18th in birdie average and 34th in scoring average this year.
Other top contenders include Alex Noren, Cam Davis, Mark Hubbard and Taylor Pendrith.
Hubbard is coming off his best finish of the season with a third place at the Barbasol Championship. He has made 14 cuts with six top-25 finishes in 18 events.
Noren, who is from Sweden, has 11 wins as a professional, none on the PGA Tour, with most in Europe. He finished ninth in the Barracuda in 2020. He’s coming off a 30th-place finish at last week’s Genesis Scottish Open, which ended a streak of missed cuts in three straight tournaments.
Fans watch the 2020 Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mt. Club’s Old Greenwood golf course from a back porch in Truckee, California. (Photo: Tom R. Smedes/Special to Reno Gazette Journal)
Matthias Schwab could be another top player to watch this week, although he is listed at 35-1 odds. He’s coming off a 16th-place finish at the John Deere Classic. Schwab was in eighth after three rounds before shooting 1 over in his final round. Schwab earned his PGA Tour card last year and has three top-10 finishes in his rookie year. He has made 14 of 18 cuts, with five top-25 finishes this season.
More top contenders include Rasmus Hojgaard, who finished tied for 10th at the Scottish. He has only missed one cut through 12 starts on the DP World Tour and ranks 11th in driving distance for the season. Cam Davis is coming off an eight-place finish with four rounds in the 60s at the John Deere.
A first for crypto
The Barracuda Championship is the first PGA Tour event to accept cryptocurrency payments for tickets as well as hospitality and sponsorship packages. More than 300 different cryptocurrency are accepted, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin.
“We are incredibly excited to take this first step in innovating the sport we all know and love, and to offer our spectators a new way to enjoy the tournament,” said tournament director Chris Hoff. “The professional golf landscape continues to innovate and evolve, and we are honored to usher the PGA Tour into this new space.”
The Barracuda is also offering an exclusive VIP experience only to those golf fans who purchase with cryptocurrency. The VIP package will include private hospitality, an official tournament pro-am team and honorary observer experiences.
Tee times
Begin approximately 7 a.m. local (10 a.m. ET) Thursday and Friday and 8:30 a.m. local (11:30 a.m.) Saturday and Sunday after the 156-player field is cut to the top 65 and ties.
Modified Stableford scoring
The Barracuda is the only PGA Tour event to use the scoring system, in which players earn points for aggressive play.
A double eagle is worth 8 points, an eagle is worth 5, a birdie earns a golfer 2, par is 0 points, bogey is minus 1 and double bogey or worse is minus 3.
Purse
The purse is $3.7 million with $666,000 going to the winner.
TV
The Golf Channel will televise the Barracuda on Thursday and Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. ET, Saturday and Sunday from 6 to 9 p.m. ET.
