Barracuda Championship: Youngster backed to emulate Bhatia and Morikawa

• Greens In Regulation the key stat in California

• Open Championship player profiles

• Read my Open Championship preview here

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

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Golf Only Bettor - The Open Championship Preview

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Tournament History

First staged in 1999 and known as the Reno-Tahoe Open, the Barracuda Championship has always been an opposite field event.

It used to be played in the same week as one of the now defunct World Golf Championships but this is the third year in-a-row that it's being played opposite the Open Championship.

Since 2012, the tournament has used the modified Stableford scoring system, which was also used at the now defunct International in Colorado - another event played at altitude.

Like last week's ISCO Championship, the Barracuda Championship is now co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour.

This is the 26^th edition of the Barracuda Championship.

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Format

Points are awarded depending on a player's score on each hole thus.

Albatross: 8 points
Eagle: 5 points
Birdie: 2 points
Par: 0 points
Bogey: -1 point
Double-bogey or worse: -3 points

The player with the highest score after 72 holes will be the winner.

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Venue

Old Greenwood Course, Tahoe Mountain Club, Truckee, California

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Course Details

Par 71 -7,480 yards
Stroke Average in 2023 - 70.17

The Barracuda Championship switched venues in 2020 for the first time in its history, moving approximately 30 miles from the Jack Nicklaus designed Montreux Golf and Country Club to the Jack Nicklaus designed Old Greenwood Course at the Tahoe Mountain Club. We return to Greenwood for a fifth time in-a-row this time around.

Like Montreux, Greenwood is at altitude, so it doesn't play anywhere near as long as its yardage suggests but it's a tough place to assess.

Richy Werenski was the first victor not to reach 40 points in the nine years that the Stableford format had been used when the course debuted in 2020 but with the rough an inch and half shorter than it had been in 2020 (3 ½ - 2), the 2021 winner, Erik Van Rooyen, who won by five points, now holds the record for the highest winning score with 50 points.

Old Greenwood opened in 2004 and it's largely treelined with water in play on six holes. Like the majority of Nicklaus designs, there's plenty of room off the tee.

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 22:00 (UK time) on Thursday

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Previous Tournament Winners in this Format

2023 - Akshay Bhatia 40 points (playoff) (Old Greenwood Course)
2022 - Chez Reavie 43 points (Old Greenwood Course)
2021 - Erik Van Rooyen 50 points (Old Greenwood Course)
2020 - Richy Werenski 39 points (Old Greenwood Course)
2019 - Colin Morikawa 47 points
2018 - Andrew Putnam 47 points
2017 - Chris Stroud 44 points (playoff)
2016 - Greg Chalmers 43 points
2015 - J.J Henry 47 points (playoff)
2014 - Geoff Ogilvy 49 points
2013 - Gary Woodland 44 points
2012 - J.J Henry 43 points

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What Will it Take to Win the Barracuda?

There have been no Strokes Gained stats produced for this event but looking at the traditional stats, hitting greens has been the key.

The 2022 winner, Chez Reavie, ranked first for Driving Accuracy and Scrambling but the other three course winners have only ranked 23^rd, 32^nd and 11^th for DA and 28^th, 39^th and 48^th for Scrambling.

All four course winners have putted nicely though- ranking between second and 17^th for Putting Average - and Greens In Regulation has been a key stat too.

The first three course winners ranked seventh or better for GIR and although last year's winner, Akshay Bhatia, ranked only 18^th, the man he beat in extra time, Patrick Rodgers, ranked third.

As many as nine players inside the top-16 in 2020 ranked inside the top-10 for GIR, the first five home in 2021 ranked tied-third, first, second, seventh and tied-third, and the top-four two years ago ranked seventh, second, 11^th and fourth so GIR is the stat to concentrate on.

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Is There an Identikit Winner?

The Barracuda field is made up of a smattering of low-ranking DP World Tour players hoping to make the gigantic leap to the PGA Tour and lots of players that don't usually get a start in some of the stronger PGA Tour events. That classic blend of youth and experience, with a few players whose form has dropped off a cliff.

Some of them are new to the PGA Tour and only just finding their feet, some are players that have lost their form quite badly recently, and the rest are veterans that have trickled slowly down the rankings, but it's PGA Tour maidens that we need to be concentrating on.

Chez Reavie was winning his third PGA Tour title but last year's winner, Akshay Bhatia, was winning for the first time and the six winners before Reavie were all PGA Tour maidens too.

As many as four of the last six winners have been in their 20s but that might be a bit misleading.

Bhatia was only 21 when he won last year, and Collin Morikawa was 22 when he won five years ago. Richy Werenski was 28 when he won, and Andrew Putnam was 29 so the only two really young winners have been top-class emerging talents.

Morikawa is now a two-time major winner and Bhatia looks destined for the very top (currently ranked 26 in the world) but the other nine men to win the event (JJ Henry has won it twice) since the format changed from stroke play to Stableford have remarkably similar profiles.

As already mentioned, seven of the last eight were winning on the PGA Tour for the first time and, under this format, the five that had tasted success previously, certainly weren't in-form recent winners.

When he won the first of his two titles, in 2012, JJ Henry had been without a win in six years, and he did next to nothing for three years before going in again in 2015. The 2014 champ, Geoff Ogilvy, hadn't won anywhere for four years and the 2013 winner, Gary Woodland, had been under something of a cloud and hadn't won anywhere in two and half years.

Although Greg Chalmers was a first time PGA Tour winner in 2016, he'd won multiple times in his native Australia, but he'd won just once (in 2014) in the five years preceding his success here and it had been four years in-between Chris Stroud's playoff defeat at the Travelers Championship and his victory here.

Reavie was winning for the first time in three years, and he had form figures reading MC-27-8-MC.

Under this new format, players can put all their woes to one side and just go for it and see what happens and outsiders tend to do well. Morikawa was a well-supported 12/113.00 favourite in 2019 but he's the only very well-fancied winner since the format changed.

It's been a while since we saw a huge outsider win though. Bhatia went off at 50.049/1, Reavie was 70.069/1 chance before the off, Van Rooyen was trading at around 60.059/1, having missed six of his previous eight cuts, Werenski was a 40.039/1 chance four years ago, Putnam was a well-backed 34.033/1 shot and Stroud was an 80.079/1 chance eight years ago.

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River Highlands form a plus

Although out of form, Reavie had finished eighth at the Travelers Championship two starts before he won here, and he's not the only recent winner with form at TPC River Highlands.

Reavie loves it there and he has recent form figures at the Connecticut layout reading 1-46-45-8-4, Bhatia was fifth there this year on debut, and although Morikawa only has River Highlands for figures reading 36-MC-MC-13, he sat sixth at halfway on debut and he was sitting second through 36 holes there this year.

Chris Stroud and JJ Henry won this event at Montrêux Golf and Country Club so there River Highlands form isn't so relevant but Stroud, whose sole career win was this event, lost in a playoff at the Travelers and Henry only won three times on the PGA Tour. This event twice and the Travelers Championship in 2006.

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In-Play Tactics

Reavie trailed the first-round leader, Mark Hubbard, by four points after the opening round but he soon went clear when he racked up 19 points on Friday - leading after rounds two and three - but the other three course winners started slowly so a mediocre first round can be overcome.

Bhatia sat tied for 48^th and 17 points behind the clear first round leader, Noh Seung-yul, Werenski sat tied for 38^th and eight points off the lead and Van Rooyen sat tied 14^th and nine points back.

From a trading perspective, liquidity won't be great given the tournament is up against the Open Championship, but we've witnessed plenty of drama here.

Patrick Rodgers hit a low of just 1.061/18 last year before Bhatia birdied the last to force the event into extra time, the 2020, Werenski, Eagled the par four 16^th and birdied the last to snatch victory at the death, and Van Rooyen caught an amazing break three years ago when his tee-ball on the 72^nd hole hit a tree and found the fairway instead of going out of bounds.

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Market Leaders and Selection

Following the withdrawal of the 20211 winner, Erik Van Rooyen, Keith Mitchell, heads the market but it's 20/121.00 the field and a wide-open heat.

The 32-year-old is in search of his second PGA Tour title, having won the Cognizant Classic in 2019 (formerly the Honda Classic) and close behind him are this year's Byron Nelson CJ Cup Championship winner, Taylor Pendrith, and last year's runner-up, Patrick Rodgers, but the one I like is Michael Thorbjornsen, who fished fourth at the Travelers Championship as an amateur two years ago.

The 22-year-old, who has only just turned pro, finished at the top of the PGA Tour University rankings for the year, earning him a PGA Tour card for the remainder of this season and all the next.

He missed the cut at the ISCO Championship last week but that was perhaps understandable given he finished second at the John Deere Classic the week before.

If there's a top-class youngster, like Morikawa and Bhatia, in the field this year, it's Thorbjornsen, and I was happy to get a tiny bet matched at 30.029/1.

He's shortened up since then but we often see big market drifts on a Wednesday so he may well go back out to somewhere close to that tomorrow and anything around 25/126.00 is fair.

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Now read my Open Championship preview here

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*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter

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