Ryan Gerard Wins the Barracuda Championship as Two Eagles Deliver a First PGA TOUR Title

Two eagles, five bogeys and one trophy. Ryan Gerard's final round at Tahoe was messy, loud and exactly what this format was built for.

Gerard scored 13 points on Sunday at Tahoe Mountain Club to finish on 47 and win the Barracuda Championship by three points over 2021 champion Erik van Rooyen, earning his first PGA TOUR title in his 47th start on TOUR. Van Rooyen closed with 11 points to finish on 44. England's Todd Clements surged to third on 39, and Beau Hossler, Max McGreevy and Jacques Kruyswijk shared fourth on 37. Co-54-hole leader Rico Hoey went scoreless on Sunday and slid into a tie for eighth on 34.

Seven Points, Twice

The round was built on two bursts. On the front nine, Gerard birdied No. 2 and then poured in a 20-foot eagle putt on the par-5 3rd, seven points in the span of two holes and an early statement on a crowded board.

He did it again after the turn. A birdie at No. 10 set up the par-5 11th, where Gerard's approach scooted through into the rough near a sprinkler head. After taking relief onto the fringe, he rolled in a 35-footer for another eagle. Two holes, seven more points, and suddenly the rest of the field was chasing a moving target.

In stroke play, two eagles and four birdies would have been a low number. In Modified Stableford, they were a lead nobody could catch.

The Bogeys That Kept It Honest

It was not a clean walk to the finish. Gerard made five bogeys in all, each one docking a point. The early eagle was followed by back-to-back bogeys before a birdie at No. 7 got those points back, and more dropped shots after the second burst were erased by a 5-foot birdie at the 14th.

The last wobble was the most nervy. At the par-4 16th, Gerard missed a 3-footer and three-putted for bogey. With van Rooyen pressing, it was the kind of mistake that can unravel a first-time winner. It did not. Gerard closed it out and let the points already banked do the work.

Gerard said the result had been building for a while. "Been playing a lot of really good golf," Gerard said, per the AP. "Felt like I haven't been quite getting the scores out of the shots that I've hit."

Van Rooyen's Push

Van Rooyen did everything a chaser is supposed to do. The South African made a 20-foot eagle putt on the par-5 15th, then buried a 30-foot birdie on the par-4 18th to post 44, just short of the tournament-record 50 points van Rooyen set here in 2021. It was a strong week by any measure, but three points was the gap.

"Mixed emotions," van Rooyen said, per the AP, after a week where the putter had come and gone.

Clements produced the best charge from further back, scoring 16 points to jump to third. Hossler had one of the best rounds of the day with 17 points, and McGreevy bounced back from Saturday's minus 4 with 16 points. Kruyswijk added 10 to join them on 37.

Hoey's Hard Sunday

For Hoey, the week ended on a painful note. After opening with back-to-back 13-point rounds and sharing the 54-hole lead, Hoey failed to add a single point on Sunday and finished tied for eighth. The first PGA TOUR title will have to wait, but a top-10 finish and two straight nights at the top of the board are real progress for a player still chasing a breakthrough.

What the Win Means

The payoff for Gerard is massive. The win is worth 300 FedExCup points and $720,000 from the $4 million purse, and it lifted the 25-year-old from 46th to 28th in the FedExCup standings, per the PGA TOUR. Gerard is now exempt on TOUR through 2027 and has earned spots in The Sentry, THE PLAYERS Championship and the PGA Championship next year. It does not come with a Masters invitation, the one perk this opposite-field event does not carry. Van Rooyen earned 165 FedExCup points and $436,000 for second.

It has been coming. The former North Carolina player finished fifth at this event two years ago, posted back-to-back finishes of ninth and second in Texas in April and arrived at Tahoe on a six-week run that started at the U.S. Open and wound through Scotland. Sunday was the reward.

"It's just like a culmination of a lifetime of work," Gerard said.

With a FedExCup ranking now inside the top 30, Gerard heads into the final stretch of the regular season firmly in the Playoffs picture, and staying inside the top 50 after the BMW Championship would bring a full slate of Signature Events next season.

Relive the week in our Round 1, Round 2 and Round 3 recaps. More details are in the PGA TOUR's final-round recap (opens in a new tab) and its points and payouts breakdown (opens in a new tab).

Sources: PGA TOUR (final-round recap, AP, points and payouts), Golf Channel. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: PGA TOUR.