The DP World Tour heads to the Tahoe Mountain Club in California for the 2024 edition of the Barracuda Championship. Damien Kayat previews.
2024 PGA Tour – DP World Tour
Barracuda Championship
Old Greenwood Course
18 – 21 July 2024
With the golfing world’s collective eye firmly fixed on Royal Troon this week, it’s little surprise that this low-key opposite-field event is garnering such minuscule media attention.
Barracuda Championship
The Barracuda Championship – originally known as the Reno-Tahoe Open – came into existence in 1999.
It has always been an opposite-field event and served as the undercard to the now-defunct WGC-Bridgestone Invitational for many years. It underwent a pretty significant shakeup in 2022, as the PGA Tour partnered up with the DP World Tour to co-sanction some of these Open-adjacent events.
It essentially replaced the Barbasol Championship as the official opposite-field event to the Open Championship. There will be no top 50 players involved this week and these tournaments are often fiendishly hard to predict.
These events provide a real opportunity for struggling pros to accumulate some ‘easy’ FedEx Cup points. This event has also proved to be a real springboard in the past, with Collin Morikawa winning in 2019 and Akshay Bhatia claiming his maiden tour title last season.
Old Greenwood Course
This event was long contested at Montreux Golf and Country Club outside Reno, Nevada. It moved to its current location, Tahoe Mountain Club, in 2020.
This par-71 looks like a major championship-level monster at 7,390 yards. But that’s extremely misleading given the course is situated at around 6000 feet above sea level, and bombers haven’t really gained much of an edge out there.
This Jack Nicklaus-design is a truly stunning traipse through the High Sierras. The fairways are lined by pine trees and the undulating greens are deceptively quick.
This puts an onus on solid approach play. Three reachable par fives and three drivable par 4s ensure that this will be a low-scoring affair. Or should I say high-scoring?
This is the only PGA Tour event on the calendar that utilises a Modified Stableford scoring system, where players are basically awarded points for holes. Scoring is as follows: Albatross 8, Eagle 5, Birdie 2, Par 0, Bogey -1, Double Bogey or worse -3.
This obviously incentivizes the type of attacking golf that saw Erik Van Rooyen rack up 50 points in 2021.
The Contenders
Harry Hall will be looking to make it back-to-back PGA Tour titles after last week’s thrilling five-man playoff at the ISCO Championship.
Keith Mitchell missed the cut at last week’s Scottish Open but he will co-lead the markets this week at 20/1 (giving you some indication of the ‘depth’ of this field).
Mitchell has produced eight top-20 finishes this year and makes for an understandable favourite.
Also coming in at 20/1, Erik Van Rooyen was looking good at Renaissance but he ultimately couldn’t secure one of the three remaining Open Championship qualification spots. He will look to take out some of his frustration on a course he absolutely massacred in 2021.
Elsewhere, the likes of Taylor Pendrith and Nick Dunlap should fancy their chances of taking home the bounty this week. World No.59 Pendrith is actually the highest-ranked player in the field.
Past Winners
2023: Akshay Bhatia (+40)
2022: Chez Reavie (+43)
2021: Erik van Rooyen (+50)
2020: Richy Werenski (+39)
2019: Collin Morikawa (+47)
2018: Andrew Putnam (+47)
To Win Outright:
Keith Mitchell 20/1 | Erik van Rooyen 20/1 | Michael Thorbjornsen 22/1 | Taylor Pendrith 25/1 | Sam Stevens 25/1
Value Bet
Chan Kim – To Win 35/1 | To Place 15/2
Chan Kim really feels like he is trending towards a breakthrough victory. Kim finished 12th at the John Deere Classic before a top-ten finish at last week’s ISCO Championship.
In fact, he only finished three shots outside of that crazy five-man playoff. He knows that victory in this week’s event will all but secure his place in the top 70 of the FedEx Cup.
He also sits second in the field for Birdie Average (which is really the name of the game this week). Akshay Bhatia ranked first in last year’s field and he went on to win the tournament.
The Man to Beat – Erik van Rooyen – To Win 20/1 | To Place 44/10
I really think that former champion Erik van Rooyen will have a point to prove this week. The South African looked well-positioned to book a last-gasp Open Championship spot at Renaissance last week.
But a dreadful four-over-par final round put pay to his Open prospects. But he was right amongst the leaders in the early stages of the tournament and he could dominate in this significant step down in quality.
Van Rooyen has registered four top-ten finishes this season (including a T2 at the Cognizant Classic). And he won this event with a record +50 score in 2022. He followed that up with a highly creditable T6 last year.
