Nicklaus, Magic Johnson, McIlroy and Kane – Sports stars celebrate Tiger’s Tour win

When Travis Alley arrived at the Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, California, in 2007, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. When Brandon Harkins would end family visits to the Lake Tahoe area, he always knew he’d take advantage of opportunities to return. RELATED: How it works: Modified Stableford | Preview: Barracuda Championship Both men were correct, so it’s no surprise they’ll be in attendance this week when something familiar (the beloved Modified Stableford format) and something new (Old Greenwood) anchor the 22nd annual Barracuda Championship. Alley, now the Director of Golf at the 36-hole Tahoe Mountain Club, and Harkins, a member of the Korn Ferry Tour who was on the PGA TOUR in 2017-18 and 2018-19, are not shy about their passion for this mountain resort approximately 200 miles from San Francisco. “It’s a golf club that is also a ski club,” Alley said. “It’s a ski club that is also a golf club.” As for Old Greenwood, a Jack Nicklaus design that opened in 2004, “I think it’s a phenomenal layout for the Stableford format,” Harkins said. While Alley — a 2007 graduate of the PGA Golf Management program at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina — certainly spends far more time at the Tahoe Mountain Club than Harkins, the native of Walnut Creek, California, embraces every visit. “Growing up in Northern California, we had a house in Tahoe, so it’s a special place for me,” said Harkins. And nearly every visit to the Tahoe area involves a stop in at the Tahoe Mountain Club, where a second course, Gray’s Crossing, was designed by Peter Jacobsen and opened in 2007. It’s Old Greenwood, though, that Harkins has played perhaps 20 times. “I like the layout and it’s always in nice shape,” he said. “There are some tricky holes, but there are also some great risk/reward holes where you can gain some points in a hurry.” Does his experience at Old Greenwood, which will be hosting the Barracuda Championship for the first time, make him a popular sounding board for players seeking insight and any chance for an edge? Harkins laughed. “To be honest, not many players have reached out to me,” he said. “But a couple of guys who know I’ve been there quite a bit have asked about it and whether or not they should put the Barracuda event on their schedule? His answer? “The same for everyone – absolutely,” said Harkins. Players likely will be accustomed to the usual elevation advantage, as they had the same thing at Montreux Golf and Country Club in Reno, Nevada, for the first 21 years of this tournament. “Being at 6,000 feet, the ball will go far,” said Alley. “Players will have some short par 4s they can drive (the 357-yard eighth; 345-yard 11th; 396-yard 16th), and there’ll be a lot of opportunity to make up ground,” said Alley. “But, at the same time, there’ll be opportunities to lose it, too.” It’s as good a time as any to remind folks that the Barracuda is that one tournament where players want to be on the “plus” side after their scores are recorded. Last year’s champion, Collin Morikawa, finished at +47, winning by three over Troy Merritt, in this event where points are awarded for birdies, eagles and albatrosses, and subtracted for bogeys, doubles, or worse. Alley suspects the shorter par 4s will yield big points and the par 5s (the 631-yard second; 578-yard sixth; and 551-yard 12th) will, as usual on the PGA TOUR, be reached in two shots to set up eagle attempts. “But the par 3s are nasty out here,” he said. “They have very difficult greens.” Therein lies an aspect of Old Greenwood (at 7,390 yards, it will play to a par of 71) that will be recognized by those players who have a familiarity with Nicklaus golf designs; the greens are expansive with demanding undulation and an assortment of hole locations. Players may also draw a connection between a few of the holes at Old Greenwood with some iconic holes elsewhere in the world. The 187-yard, par-3 seventh, for instance, has a Redan green and might evoke thoughts of the famed 15th at North Berwick in Scotland, the original Redan. The short, 357-yard, par-4 eighth features a series of six bunkers that surround a green tucked to the right, which is the mold of No. 10 at Riviera. Then there’s the 18th hole, a demanding 451-yard challenge that moves gently uphill, reminiscent of the closing hole at Nicklaus’ beloved Muirfield Village. As for the other features that will catch your eye – from the towering pine trees, or the series of streams that connect four lakes on the expansive property, or possible sightings of wildlife – that is a tribute to the breath-taking mountain setting. It will scream for you to take a deep breath, relax, and simply meander among nature – and most days Alley and the resort guests can do just that. But right now, things are moving quickly at the Tahoe Mountain Club. Winter snow pretty much melted away by late March “and since then we’ve never let our foot off the gas,” said Alley. “We’ve looked forward to seeing something like this and it’s exciting to see it all come together.”

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One of the resolute, perennial truths about THE PLAYERS Championship is its unpredictability. Since 2000, we've seen as many winners come from outside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking as we have from the top five. Five of the last seven winners at TPC Sawgrass have ranked in the top 10 for the week in Strokes Gained: Approach, but Webb Simpson won in 2018 while ranked 62nd in that statistic. In 2019, Rory McIlroy won the championship while averaging 305 yards off the tee. Jim Furyk, the runner-up, was 34 yards behind him. All of which helps explain why nobody has ever won THE PLAYERS in consecutive years. Successfully defending any title on the PGA TOUR is fairly rare. In the 10 seasons from 2011 through 2020, there were 445 official events held on the TOUR. Only 13 times - or about one in every 34 tournaments - did a player go back-to-back at a particular event. THE PLAYERS was first held in 1974, and only two tournaments on the TOUR schedule have had longer droughts without a back-to-back winner. The Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club has not had a player win in consecutive years since Ben Hogan in 1952 and 1953. And the Wyndham Championship, which has been held at three different venues, has not had a player successfully defend since Sam Snead in 1956. So why has no player ever gone back-to-back at TPC Sawgrass? It's a difficult question to answer, but 15th Club combed through more than 16,000 rounds of historical data in an attempt to find out. Gaining Strokes in Different Ways Pete Dye's design gives players of all different skill sets scoring opportunities and distinct challenges all over the golf course. A look at the last two winners of THE PLAYERS explains that point perfectly. In 2018, Webb Simpson won his first PLAYERS title despite losing strokes to the field on approach shots. A staggering 95% of his strokes gained for the week came on shots around the green and on putts. Contrast that to the winning formula McIlroy utilized the following year, when 85% of his strokes gained came in the form of tee shots and approaches. He gained less than 5% of his strokes on the field with his putter, the lowest percentage of any PLAYERS champion the last 15 years. Those jumpy trends persist throughout recent history when analyzing PLAYERS champions. In 2018, Si Woo Kim gained more than 35% of his strokes over the field on tee shots. In 2007, though, Phil Mickelson actually lost strokes on his tee shots, but managed to win thanks to spectacular iron play. The last 15 champions here are also all over the map with performance on the greens; they have gained anywhere from 5% to 63% of their strokes with the putter. Let's compare that to THE PLAYERS' neighbor on both the map and the schedule, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. While Bay Hill Club & Lodge provides a demanding test, the winning formula is more predictable. For example, eight of the last 10 winners, including Bryson DeChambeau last week, have ranked in the top 15 in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach. Eight of the last 10 have also gained at least one stroke per round on their approach shots. Gaining strokes off the tee is typically not where players gain an advantage at Bay Hill, as nine of the last 11 winners gained anywhere from just 2% to 17% of their strokes with driver. Trends like this are predictable at most TOUR venues, but not TPC Sawgrass. Not only has no player ever successfully defended his title at this event, it's been a while since one was even remotely close. The last defending champion to finish in the top 10 at THE PLAYERS was Adam Scott, 16 years ago. Since THE PLAYERS found its permanent home at TPC Sawgrass in 1982, more defending champs have missed the cut (seven) than finished in the top 10 (five). The statistics further explain the complicated genius behind the design of this golf course; TPC Sawgrass truly does not favor one specific type of player, but rather rewards the best overall performer in the field that particular week.

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