Barracuda Championship 2024: Course and current form stats

• Points means prizes at this Nicklaus-designed venue

• Shipley to continue bright start to pro career

• Hossler can claim maiden PGA Tour title

• Pick your places on Open each-way bets with the Betfair Sportsbook

Golf Only Bettor - The Open Championship Preview

Tournament and Course Notes

• For one week only, members of the PGA Tour and DP World Tour will be chasing points, rather than competing over 72 holes of strokeplay. The Barracuda Championship is contested using a modified Stableford system (details below);

• This is the second of two consecutive co-sanctioned tournaments on American soil. And, as with last week's ISCO Championship, this week's event will feature players from both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour;

• Many of those who failed to qualify for this week's Open Championship in Scotland will be teeing-up at the California ski resort of Tahoe Mountain Club which is situated around 40 miles from the state border with Nevada. This will be the fifth time that the club's Old Greenwood course has hosted a PGA Tour event;

• Located almost 6,000 feet above sea level, Tahoe Mountain Club is a picturesque venue laid out within 600 acres of forest and meadowland. Opened in 2004, the Old Greenwood course is surrounded by the many peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountain range;

• Towering pine trees line most of the fairways, while water comes into play on six holes. Putting surfaces at this Jack Nicklaus-designed course are undulating and quick. Both greens and fairways are sown with Bentgrass, overseeded with Poa annua. And there are also a handful of tricky dog-legs to contend with on a course where accurate approach play is even more important than normal;

• Playing at high altitude significantly reduces the full length of the course, because the ball flies much further in rarefied air. Just four members of the world's top 75-ranked golfers are taking part this week.

Click here for latest betting on this week's BARRACUDA CHAMPIONSHIP

Modified Stableford Format

The points' format for this week's 72-hole tournament remains as follows: Double Eagle: 8 pts; Eagle: 5; Birdie: 2; Par: 0; Bogey: -1; Double Bogey or worse: -3;

With more points awarded for a birdie, than a bogey, it is a system devised to encourage attacking golf.

Click here for latest betting on this week's OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

Good Current Form

Taylor Pendrith is the highest-ranked golfer teeing-up at Tahoe Mountain.

The world No 59 Canadian tied-16th at last month's US Open, having earlier in the year secured his maiden PGA Tour title at The CJ Cup in Texas.

Rookie McClure Meissner has made a respectable start to life on the PGA Tour, having posted five T20s in his most recent 10 starts.

The highlight, so far, was a tied-fifth at Colonial Country Club in May.

Recently-turned pro Neal Shipley has impressed during his extremely short career.

The 23-year-old has only played in six events which qualify for World Ranking status, but he's already enjoyed a brace of top 10s.

This includes a tie-for-sixth in last week's event at Keene Trace where he missed out on the play-off by two strokes.

And in this co-sanctioned tournament in California, two DP World Tour members to keep an eye on are Andrea Pavan and Sam Bairstow.

Pavan, a former world No 65, secured back-to-back top 10s in Europe last month, and opened his two-event American campaign with a tie-for-31st in Kentucky on Sunday.

In the same tournament, Bairstow tied-sixth which was his third top-10 of 2024.

Good Course Form

Among those with decent course form are Joel Dahmen, Beau Hossler, Mark Hubbard, Patrick Rodgers and former Tahoe Mountain champion Erik van Rooyen.

The latter flies in from Scotland and will tee-it-up on a course where he held aloft the trophy three years ago. He was also sixth in 2023.

Of this quintet, world No 88 Hossler still has hopes of qualifying for the first of this year's FedEx Cup Play-Off events in Tennessee.

The 29-year-old is a three-time runner-up on the PGA Tour, and was sixth here in 2023.

His highest finish of this season, so far, is tied-fourth at the Myrtle Beach Classic.

THE OPEN: Major form stats

Note: List Contains Leading Reserves

Now read THE OPEN: Course info and current form data