Barracuda Championship Executive Director Chris Hoff reacts to this year’s tournament

TRUCKEE, Calif. (KOLO) - “Great weather, we got a great crowd out here, the leaderboard is shaping up, the golf course is in fantastic shape, so we’re really pleased.”

High praise from Barracuda Championship Executive Director Chris Hoff on this year’s tournament.

For the first time since moving from Reno’s Montreux Golf & Country Club to Truckee’s Old Greenwood Golf Course the Barracuda Championship does not have any restrictions relating to the Coronavirus pandemic.

The tournament is evolving in other ways, too.

The ‘Cuda is the first PGA Tour event to accept crypto as a form of payment. Hoff thinks the move brings flexibility to patrons.

“Now it’s in place. The ability to do transactions with crypto, whether it’s a ticket or a sponsorship, that’s all set up where hopefully the crypto market bounces back and see some activity there,” said Hoff.

There are the logistics, but Hoff thinks play has been top-notch. There will be a new champion Sunday as last year’s winner, Erik Van Rooyen, opted to compete in the Open Championship this weekend before withdrawing with a neck injury.

“It’s something we deal with quite often where our defending champion often goes on and plays really well and unfortunately won’t be back the next year,” Hoff said of Van Rooyen not participating in 2022. “But we’ve seen guys who are past champions return two to three years later because they love this area.”

Each golfer in the field took their own path to Old Greenwood.

“Those are the kind of guys who really make our field - the guys with a really great story behind them.,” said Hoff. “David (Longmire) qualified, Ollie (Osborne) from Reno who we gave a spot to, Joe Highsmith is making his PGA Tour debut here. There’s just a ton of stories out here and when we can give those guys an opportunity to play and expose their story and how they got here it really adds to it.”

The final 18 holes of the Barracuda will be played Sunday.

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