Barracuda Championship: Top five sleeper candidates at Montreux

The Barracuda Championship may be taking second stage to the WGC-Bridgestone, but these sleepers could take the spotlight at Montreux.

The Barracuda Championship is one of the more interesting events on the PGA TOUR schedule. Earlier this year, fans everywhere flocked to the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and its new team format. However, the Barracuda Championship – formerly the Reno-Tahoe Open – has been the only tournament to use the Modified Stableford scoring system for the last five years.

Stableford is different from regular golf scoring in one way – the mission is to “go high”. Each score is awarded a different number of points, with better scores earning higher bonuses. It’s all about managing risk-reward, and aggressive play will generally pay off more than it would in your traditional tournament.

It’s different, but pretty simple once you’ve got the numbers down. Birdie are worth two points, eagles five, and the rare albatross is worth eight. Bogeys only subtract one point, and double bogeys three. It’s a bit like match play in that regard; once a hole has been “lost”, you simply pick up and move on to the next one.

Predicting a true “sleeper” in this alternate field event is a bit more difficult than usual. My typical standards are out the window, with the world’s top 50 players and winners from the past year all playing at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational this week. So, modifications are in order.

I’ll be taking my sleepers from players outside the FedEx Cup top 100 players, and eliminating all winners from the past two years (15 are in this week’s field). These are players who will be fighting hard for every FedEx Cup point, either to solidify playoff positions or to keep a TOUR card for next year.

Montreux Golf and Country Club will present plenty of opportunity for players to fight for the winner’s 300 FedEx Cup points. Let’s take a look at some of this week’s dark horses.