Brendan Steele put up a 2-under-par 73-69-69-71 — 282 to tie for 39th place at last week’s Quicken Loans National in Bethesda, Maryland. He missed a top-20 finish by three strokes.

Somewhat characteristically, the longer the club, the better he did with it. The Idyllwild native led all players in the tournament in strokes gained off the tee with 5.060, gaining 4.948 strokes against the field overall, tee to green. But he gave back 0.650 strokes in play around the green and another 3.217 with the putter.

Brendan held his position as 50th in FedExCup standings, but slipped two spots — from 75th to 77th — in the Official World Golf Ranking.

This week, Brendan plays in one of his favorite tournaments: the Barracuda Championship on the Montreux Golf and Country Club course in Reno. The Barracuda is unique on the PGA Tour in that since 2012 it has employed a Modified Stableford points system. It’s a bit of a cross between medal and match play in that it is played hole-by-hole, but with players accumulating points overall.

A player scores 8 points for a double eagle on any hole, 5 for an eagle, 2 for a birdie, none for a par, minus 1 for a bogey and minus 3 for any double bogey or worse. This top-heavy scoring encourages a “go for it” strategy, since going for a risky birdie or eagle can score a player plus 2 or plus 5 points if he succeeds, but will cost him only minus 1 or minus 3 if he blows it. If a player doesn’t make at least bogey on a given hole, he just picks up and writes a minus 3 for that hole score. So far at the Barracuda, the winner has always finished the four days with a score in the 40s.

Check with the Town Crier website for B’s Thursday and Friday tee times.