Brendan Steele will play this week in the $3.5-million Barracuda Championship on the Old Greenwood Course at the Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, California. This tournament has raised $4.6 million for charities since its inception in 1999.
The Barracuda uses Modified Stableford scoring: A player scores 8 points for each albatross (double eagle), 5 points for each eagle, 2 points for each birdie, 0 for a par, -1 for each bogey and -3 for each double bogey or worse. The highest score is the winner. The idea is to encourage aggressive play, since the reward for a good hole score is disproportionately greater than the converse penalty for a bad score on the hole.
Brendan has played the Barracuda, or its predecessor the Reno-Tahoe Open, seven times in his career — placing 4th in 2013, tied for 5th in 2016, and tied for 7th in 2015, while never having missed a cut.
The Idyllwild native now stands 90th in the FedExCup Points list and 99th on the Official World Golf Ranking.
Brendan will tee off this week on Thursday at 12:13 p.m. PDT and on Friday at 7:23 a.m. PDT, playing with Ryan Armour and Kevin Stadler both days.
The Barracuda will be telecast on the Golf Channel. You may follow Brendan’s scoring on the pgatour.com website or with the PGA Tour app on cellphone.