TRUCKEE, Calif. — After several lead changes on the back nine, Chez Reavie clamped down when he needed to and emerged as the champion.
Reavie picked up his third win on the PGA Tour when he took the Barracuda Championship on Sunday at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood golf course.
Reavie finished plus-43 points after picking up 6 in Sunday’s final round. He edged Alex Noren, who was second with plus-42.
Reavie, 40, is the oldest player won in the PGA Tour this year. This was his third career win on the Tour. He also had the lead after three rounds in his two previous wins.
Reavie had plus-37 points after Saturday’s round, but struggled a bit on his front nine Sunday.
He said staying patient was the key.
“I knew I was going to have to. I knew some guys were going to make a lot of birdies early. I was hoping to be one of those guys, but the putter was kind of letting me down early,” Reavie said. “Just tried to keep it as close as I could to the hole and give myself some good looks.”
Chez Reavie kisses the championship trophy after winning the 2022 Barracuda Championship at Tahoe Mt. Club’s Old Greenwood in Truckee, California. (Photo: Tom R. Smedes/Special to Reno Gazette-Journal)
Reavie said he didn’t look at the score until after the first nine, but then started checking every other hole.
He picked up 300 points in the standings and moved up to 49th in the FedEx Cup rankings with the win. He also won $666,000 for his efforts.
He also won the 2008 RBC Canadian Open and the Travelers Championship in 2019.
Noren scored 14 points on Sunday. He was making his 132nd PGA Tour start and was trying to become the Barracuda’s sixth straight first-time winner.
Noren, from Stockholm, Sweden, turned 40 last week. He had been the first alternate at the British Open, but decided to play in the Barracuda, thinking nobody would drop out at St. Andrews.
He said the Old Greenwood course was a little tricky Sunday as the wind picked up early and held steady most of the day
“It’s been a roller coaster of a week, obviously, but when you make the cut, you think, well, this is a great week anyway, and then I played good on the weekend and had a blast,” Noren said. “If it was another tournament, I might not have gone there, but I just love this week, and I wanted to have a vacation at home with the kids before the Playoffs start. I wanted to be able to grab some points, either at the Open or here. I didn’t want to just sit out the Open and then having to add a week.”
Martin Laird was third with plus-38 points; Mark Hubbard took fourth with plus-37 and Scott Gutschewski was fifth with plus-35.
Reavie is the first player 40 or older to win on the PGA Tour since Lucas Glover at the 2021 John Deere Classic.
He finished 43rd last year at the Barracuda and his best finish in the event was 42nd in 2009.
The Barracuda went to the Modified Stableford scoring system in 2012.
This was Laird’s best finish of the season.
He played with Reavie on Sunday and said the wind gusts made it a little tougher than earlier in the week.
Both Reavie and Laird said they plan to play in the 3M tournament in Minnesota this week.
Laird said getting away form the golf course for a while earlier in the week paid off for him.
“I feel like my game has been pretty good for a while. It was funny this week, my family has been out and I’ve literally not done any practice, just had a very relaxed week and had my best week of the year. There’s a lot to be said for that,” Laird said. “Sometimes we kind of get stuck in a rut and almost try and practice our way out of it, and sometimes it’s the opposite; you just need to kind of get away. I’m kind of going to take that philosophy the next few week and just kind of be a lot more relaxed and go and enjoy it.”
It was his first time playing at Old Greenwood.
“I really enjoyed the old venue, but this Old Greenwood golf course is fantastic. It’s a really good fun golf course for this format, so look forward to coming back,” he said.
What about 2023?
The dates for next year’s Barracuda have not been set. This is the last year on the current contract with Barracuda as the tournament title sponsor.
Tournament director Chris Hoff told the Reno Gazette-Journal that negotiations are ongoing and he said it is likely that Barracuda will return as the title sponsor.
“We’re in renewal talks with them right now,” Hoff said. “We’re optimistic and they’ve had a great time this week and the last nine years have been incredible.”
The deal to hold the tournament at the Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood course runs through 2023.
In August 2021, it was announced that from 2022 onward, the event would become a co-sanctioned event with the European Tour.
Scoring
The Barracuda Championship is employing the Modified Stableford scoring format, the first PGA Tour event to use the format since The International in 2006. Players are allocated points based on the number of strokes taken at each hole with the goal of achieving the highest overall score. Albatross +8, Eagle +5, Birdie +2, Par 0, Bogey -1, Double bogey or worse -3. It’s the only PGA Tour event to use the scoring format.
Streak broken
The last six winners of the Barracuda Championship were first-time PGA Tour winners.
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2016 Greg Chalmers
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2017 Chris Stroud
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2018 Andrew Putnam
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2019 Collin Morikawa
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2020 Richy Werenski
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2021 Erik van Rooyen
It was the longest streak on Tour.