After 2nd Eagle, Gerard Hangs on to Beat Van Rooyen

 Birdies were good, but eagles were golden at the Barracuda Championship, and that explains why Ryan Gerard was able to outscore Erik Van Rooyen on Sunday and win the tournament. 

Girard, a 25-year-old former  All-American at the University of North Carolina, made five bogeys in the final round. But he also had two eagles, which were worth 5 points each under the Modified Stableford Scoring System, plus four birdies (2 points each) on his way to a medal score of 3-under-par 68 on the Old Greenwood Course at the Tahoe Mountain Club.

Van Rooyen, who started the day one point behind, shot 67 -- but lost ground to Girard in the points race (13 points for Girard to 11 for Van Rooyen).

As a result, Girard ended up with 47 points and was able to claim his first PGA Tour victory -- not to mention the $720,000 first-place check. That pushed his 2025 earnings to $3,607,522, which moved him up to No. 31 on the money list.

Van Rooyen, 35, the former University of Minnesota star from South Africa, concluded the weekend with 44 points. He made $436,000, and that bumped his season total to $2,085,816, which puts hm at No. 64 on the money list. 

(The money he made Sunday also bumped Van Rooyen's career PGA Tour earnings to more than $11 million. He's now at $11,011,828.)

Basically, Girard won the title in a 10-hole stretch from the second to the 11th, beginning with a birdie at the 345-yard, par-4 second and an eagle at the 551-yard, par-5 third. He bogeyed the fourth and fifth holes (a minus 1 for each bogey), but got the lost two points back with a birdie at the seventh. He capped off his 14-point scoring spree with a birdie at the 484-yard, par-4 10th and his second eagle of the day at the 631-yard, par-5 11th.

That got him to 48 points, and no one else was in the 40s at that time. 

Van Rooyen, who turned professional in 2013, got his first victory as a pro -- and a check for $6,000 -- at Southview Country Club in 2016 at the old Tapemark Charity Pro-Am (now a Minnesota PGA Section event). He has two PGA Tour victories on his resume, one of which came four years ago in the Barracuda Championship. On Saturday, it looked as though he might do it again, after he got off to a great start, including an eagle on the third hole, and he led much of the round. But he added only one point to his total on the back nine (1 bogey, 1 birdie), and he picked up only one additional point on the front nine Sunday -- a bogey at the fourth and a birdie at the par-5 sixth. 

Having made an eagle on the third hole Saturday, he didn't even birdie it on Sunday, settling for a par instead. He did make a late rally on the back nine, however, starting with birdies at the 10th and 11th holes. A bogey at the 14th probably wiped out any chance he had of winning, but he eagled the 15th (578 yards, although the holes at Tahoe play roughly 10 percent shorter  than the yardages suggest, because of the thin mountain air). The five points he picked up with that eagle separated him from a pack of contenders for second place.

He capped off the round with an impressive but essentially meaningless birdie at the 452-yard 18th. 

Todd Clements wound up in third, five points behind Van Rooyen at 39, and there was a three-way tie for fourth -- Beau Hossler, Max McGreavy and Jacques Kruyswijk -- at 37 points.

Also in the field at Old Greenwood was Ben Polland. Polland wasn't exactly a dominant high school player when he was at Bloomington Jefferson two decades ago, but his golf game blossomed while he was in the Golf Management Program at Campbell University.

His regular job these days is at Shooting Star Golf Club in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But he has become a fixture at or near the top of the leaderboards at regional and national club pro tournaments. And his victories in national tournaments has gotten him into a few PGA Tour events, including Barracuda, where he tied for 23rd with 29 points and  made $34,800. 

Barracuda Championship
At Tahoe Mountain Club -- Old Greenwood Course
Par 71, 7,480 yards

Final results  (Modified Stableford Scoring System)
1. Ryan Gerard           $720,000             7  15  12  13 -- 47
2. Erik Van Rooyen       $436,000           14   8  11  11 -- 44
3. Todd Clements          $276,000            13   8    2  16 -- 39
T4. Beau Hossler           $168,333             6    8    6  17 -- 37
T4. Max McGreavy         $168,333             9  16  -4  16 -- 37
T4. Jacques    Kruywijk  $168,333              8   7  12  10 -- 37
T23. Ben Polland             $34,800              10  3    5  11 --23