Predicting when, where and why we’ll see Tiger

For the first time in its 22-year history, the Barracuda Championship has a second home in the land of second homes. Situated about 17 miles west as the bald eagle flies from its aerie at Montrêux Golf & Country Club in Reno, Nevada, about 500 feet higher and across the state line into Truckee, California, Tahoe Mountain Club’s Old Greenwood Course debuts as host of the final additional event of the 2019-20 PGA TOUR season. The Jack Nicklaus Signature design opened in 2004. It’s a par 71 with three par 5s and, even more interestingly, as many as three drivable par 4s. That’ll get the juices flowing given that the Modified Stableford scoring system is being used for the ninth consecutive edition of the tournament. For more on the course, the format and the tournament, scroll past the projected contenders and others to consider in the field of 132. RELATED: Preview the Barracuda Championship’s new host| The First Look POWER RANKINGS: BARRACUDA CHAMPIONSHIP OTHERS TO CONSIDER • Pat Perez … Pieced together a nice week at TPC Twin Cities for a T23 to go 4-for-5 in the restart. Modified Stableford scoring meshes so well with his swashbuckling approach at golf and at life. • Nick Watney … Got off the schneid with a T12 and four sub-70s at the 3M Open. The Sacramento, California, native now gets to enjoy a virtual home game. It’s been a while, but he went for three top 10s at Montrêux. • Brandon Harkins … The former PGA TOUR member might have the most experience at Old Greenwood. He’s also gone 7-for-7 with three top 25s on the Korn Ferry Tour since its season restarted. • MJ Daffue … He’s not quite Patrick Reed or T.J. Vogel, but Daffue isn’t a slouch, either. He’s in the field on a sponsor exemption, but perhaps he should have declined it in favor of open qualifying. See, as noted by Ryan French in his recap of the open qualifiers for the Workday Charity Open, Daffue is 6-for-10 in the one-round races for a chip and a chair. In all six(!), he’s finished inside the top 30 in the tournament proper, including a T22 at the Workday. He’s built for the Modified Stableford scoring system, and vice versa. True to Nicklaus’ stamp on most properties, there’s room to move it off the tee on the 7,390-yard test, but there are strategic slots and spots from a handful that will separate seriously valuable drives from pedestrian fairway splitters. The entire course is blanketed with a blend of bentgrass and Poa annua not dissimilar to what many in the field experienced on most or all of a handful of recent sites where the PGA TOUR has set up shop. Of course, the big difference between locales such at TPC River Highlands, Detroit Golf Club and Muirfield Village is the altitude. At about 6,000 feet above sea level, conversions to compensate will be necessary to capitalize on scoring opportunities. Greens average 5,300 square feet, but Nicklaus-esque undulations will make them feel even smaller. Primary rough rising to three-and-a-half inches reinforces the goal to get the math right. Despite the customary challenge of the course, the overarching narrative concerning it and the week in general is to have a good time. It’s a resort community where countless locals are summering. With majestic vistas, clean and dry air, and nothing but sunshine all week with daytimes highs in the 80s, it’s golf for the soul ahead of an intense stretch of action on the horizon. Contributing to the thrill are par 4s measuring 357 yards, 345 yards and 396 yards at the eighth, 11th and 16th holes, respectively. However, with two of the par 5s and the shortest two par 3s on the front side, contenders in the final round probably will have built a foundation early in the day, and then take whatever they can coming home. Modified Stableford totals points (like a fantasy league), so positive numbers are good for the only time all season. The worst a golfer can score on any hole is minus-3 points for a double bogey (or worse). ShotLink is not used to measure performance. In addition to 300 FedExCup points and a two-year PGA TOUR membership exemption, the winner will qualify for next week’s PGA Championship. As of midday Tuesday, only nine golfers in the field are exempt into the major. Incidentally, fields for additional events entering this season were reduced to 120, but this week’s field was reset to 132 to help compensate for playing time missed due to the pandemic. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings (WGC-St. Jude) TUESDAY*: Power Rankings (Barracuda), Sleepers (WGC-St. Jude), Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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Tiger Woods won’t say whether he’ll play back-to-back weeks.

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Bay Hill Club & Lodge was an absolute bully at last year's Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Facing fierce winds on the weekend, the field averaged more than 2.1 strokes over par for the tournament, making it the most difficult course on the PGA TOUR for the 2019-2020 season. It was the first time Bay Hill had yielded a scoring average over 74 since 1983, and the highest winning score in relation to par (-4, Tyrrell Hatton) at the event since '83, as well. Approach play was especially perilous, with the field recording an average proximity to the hole of 54'4", the largest number all season on TOUR. They hit only 50.5% of greens in regulation for the week, the lowest number in any non-major since the 2005 RBC Canadian Open at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club (49.8%). While last year's conditions made for a tougher test than players normally face in Orlando, there is one statistic about Bay Hill that reveals itself every year, regardless of the weather. Bay Hill annually ranks among the courses with the most approach shots by the field from outside 200 yards. Last season, there were more than 1,800 approaches from that range - most of any course all season. Since 2016, there have been 9,926 approach shots hit from 200 yards out or farther - nearly 3,000 more than the next-closest course in that span (TPC River Highlands at 7,007). Part of the source of this are the long par 3s at Arnie's place: the quartet of holes have an average length of 216.5 yards on the scorecard. That was the longest average length for par 3s on TOUR last season, and ranked second-longest each of the previous two years - the par-3 holes at Corales Golf Club, host of the Corales Puntacana Championship, averaged 230.5 yards on the card in 2018 and 2019. So how have recent winners at Bay Hill fared on these long approaches? Since 2012, they are a combined 44 under par when hitting approach shots (on all holes, regardless of par) from outside 200 yards. In that span, the winner at Bay Hill has a proximity to the hole 4'9" better than the field average that particular week. Three tournament winners in that span beat the field average by 6 feet or more - Tiger Woods in 2013 (6'1"), Matt Every in 2015 (9'9"), and Rory McIlroy in 2018 (16'9"). McIlroy's performance on these particular shots was especially remarkable. In his 2018 win at Bay Hill, McIlroy led the field in approach shot proximity from outside 200 yards. When McIlroy is at his best, this is a pervasive theme. Only eight times in the ShotLink era (a collection of more than 600 tournaments) has a winner averaged less than 35 feet away on approach shots outside 200 yards (minimum 15 attempts). McIlroy has four of those wins. So which of the players in this week's field show promise in this particular statistic? There are more than 180 with 100 or more approach shots from outside 200 yards on TOUR the last 2 seasons. Of that group, you don't have to look far to find a familiar name: this week's defending champion, Tyrrell Hatton, ranks second in average proximity to the hole (44'2") when facing that length of an approach shot. Bryson DeChambeau, who has finished in the top five twice in the last three years at this event, ranks third (44'10"). The leader in this statistic is Will Gordon (43'2"), who makes his Bay Hill debut this week. How about scoring from that distance? Gordon ranks fourth in score to par per attempt (-0.29), best in the field in Orlando. Talor Gooch is another under-the-radar name who performs well in these situations: his score to par per attempt (-0.27) ranks eighth since the start of the 2019-20 season. Sungjae Im is a remarkable 106 under par when faced with these approach shots the last two seasons, 12 shots better than any other player. In a statistical testament to how often he plays, though, he's also had 38 more attempts than anyone else in that span (Im ranks 24th of 185 players in score to par per attempt, at -0.25). Almost every course in professional golf has its own defining characteristics, whether visually, architecturally, or when diving into the numbers. Longer approach shots into greens are a trend to keep an eye on this week at Bay Hill.

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