Barracuda Championship: Top five sleeper candidates at Montreux
Kyle Reifers is the very definition of a road warrior on the PGA TOUR – with 30 starts this season, he’s teeing it up every chance he gets. He’s made 15 cuts in that time, and currently ranks 157th in the FedEx Cup points race. Every point matters as he looks to maintain his TOUR status, as he finished in the top 100 each of the last two seasons.
Despite his overall struggles in 2017, there is some good news coming this week. Of Reifers’s three top-25 finishes this year, two of them have come in alternate-field events. In March, he finished tied for 17th in Puerto Rico, opposite the WGC Match Play. And just two weeks ago, Reifers tied for 18th at the Barbasol Championship. With 300 FedEx Cup points awarded to this week’s winner, I doubt anybody at Montreux will be complaining that Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are playing in Akron.
Reifers had a monster year here in 2015, finishing runner-up at +47, and last year finished tied for ninth at +30. As much of a “horse for the course” as anybody out there, Reifers knows that he needs a strong showing here to position himself well for the 2017-18 season. That will fit his aggressive style well in the modified Stableford system.