Barracuda Championship Picks

The forgotten golf tournament this week is going to be the Barracuda Championship at Lake Tahoe. It is an alternate event for golfers who didn’t make it into The Open Championship. The field will look a little different this year, as it is a co-sponsored event with the DP World Tour, so it will be a mix of PGA Tour and DP World Tour players. This event also uses the Modified Stableford Scoring system; the only PGA Tour event that uses that type of scoring. That means rewards for eagles and birdies and no real punishment for taking big chances. Golfers get five points for an eagle and two points for a birdie. It is all about scoring this week at the Barracuda Championship. Let’s look at Barracuda Championship picks.

Venue: The Old Greenwood course at Tahoe Mountain Club is a par 71 that measures 7,480 yards. This will be the third time the course is hosting the Barracuda Championship. The course is 6,000 feet above sea level and that means some driveable par 4 holes.

Last Year: Erik van Rooyen won this first PGA Tour event last year, as he made three birdies in the last five holes. He won by five points over Andrew Putnam. It was a big final day for van Rooyen who made six birdies and an eagle. Putnam started well but faded on the back nine. Scott Piercy finished in third, while Adam Schenk finished fourth.

TV Coverage: Golf Channel

The Open Championship Odds

Maverick McNealy 11-1

Cameron Davis 16-1

Alex Noren 16-1

Nick Hardy 22-1

Mark Hubbard 22-1

Taylor Pendrith 25-1

Doug Ghim 25-1

Rasmus Hojgaard 28-1

Martin Laird 32-1

Andrew Putnam 35-1

Matthias Schwab 35-1

Chez Reavie 40-1

Vincent Whaley 40-1

John Huh 40-1

Taylor Moore 45-1

Hurly Long 45-1

Greyson Sigg 45-1

Joe Highsmith 50-1

Chesson Hadley 50-1

Scott Piercy 55-1

Hank Lebioda 60-1

Ryan Moore 65-1

Austin Smotherman 65-1

Johannes Veerman 65-1

Stephan Jaeger 65-1

Austin Cook 65-1

Matti Schmid 65-1

Michael Gligic 65-1

James Hahn 70-1

Doc Redman 70-1

Kelly Kraft 75-1

Julien Brun 75-1

Justin Lower 75-1

Ryan Armour 75-1

Rafa Cabrera Bello 80-1

Niklas Norgaard Moller 80-1

Robert Streb 80-1

Chad Ramey 80-1

Michael Thompson 85-1

Yannik Paul 85-1

Callum Tarren 85-1

Sean OHair 90-1

Sean Crocker 90-1

Charley Hoffman 90-1

Joseph Bramlett 90-1

Dylan Wu 90-1

Matthieu Pavon 90-1

Brandon Hagy 95-1

Espen Kofstad 95-1

All other players are listed with odds of 100-1 or more

Favorite

Maverick McNealy 11-1

I have to say that I don’t get McNealy being such a big favorite. What has he done to deserve this type of respect? He still doesn’t have a win and I know he is up into the top 75 in the latest World Golf Rankings, but this is still a lot of respect in terms of the golf betting odds. I say on a weekly basis that golf betting favorites simply don’t win very often and I am not taking McNealy at odds this low.

Value Picks

Cameron Davis 16-1

I like the odds on Davis better than I do on McNealy and at least Davis already has a PGA Tour win. The overall stats on the two players are very similar and yet we get 16-1 on Davis. It also doesn’t hurt that Davis is in the top 10 on the PGA Tour in eagles made.

Mark Hubbard 22-1

If you are looking for someone who can go low, and that is definitely what you want to do in this event, then why not Hubbard? He ranks 31^st on the PGA Tour in scoring average. He actually has a better scoring average than McNealy and we get double the odds.

Andrew Putnam 35-1

Putnam definitely likes to play this event, as he won it in 2018 and he nearly won it again last year before finishing second. I’ll take a flyer on him to win it again at these types of odds.

Ricardo Gouveia 100-1

I am going to throw a big bomb in here and go with Gouevia at odds of 100-1. This will be his second straight PGA Tour start and he played pretty well last week at the Barracuda Championship, as he was just two shots behind heading into Sunday’s final round.

Check out the latest Barracuda Championship odds at SugarHouse.