What you need to know as the 2022 PGA Tour Barbasol Championship gets underway in Kentucky
The PGA Tour is back in Central Kentucky this week, and there’s plenty on the line for the 156 players in the field.
The Barbasol Championship will be played for the fourth time at Champions at Keene Trace in Nicholasville, about 20 minutes to the southwest of Lexington.
Starting this year, the Barbasol Championship will no longer be played at the same time as The Open Championship, also known as the British Open.
Instead, the Barbasol Championship will be played the week before The Open, and run opposite the Genesis Scottish Open, a DP World Tour (also known as the European Tour) event commonly used by players to tune up for The Open.
The winner of the 2022 Barbasol Championship will earn the final qualifying spot in The Open, which will mark its 150th edition this year at St. Andrews in Scotland.
That’s quite the reward for the player who emerges victorious from the 156-player field (up from 132 players at the 2021 event), that will feature 50 players from the DP World Tour.
The tournament purse will be $3.7 million, with the winner taking home $666,000.
The winner of this week’s tournament will receive 300 FedExCup points. The 36-hole cut includes the top 65 players and ties on the leaderboard.
Here’s what you need to know about the 2022 Barbasol Championship:
Barbasol Championship odds
Here are the top betting choices for this week’s PGA Barbasol Championship, according to Bet MGM (+2000 means a bettor would win $2,000 on a $100 bet):
▪ Chris Gotterup (+1600)
▪ Adam Svensson (+2200)
▪ Kevin Streelman (+2200)
▪ Mark Hubbard (+2200)
▪ Taylor Pendrith (+2500)
▪ Patton Kizzire (+2800)
Let’s quickly survey these top betting choices.
Gotterup, the 2022 college golfer of the year at Oklahoma, received an exemption into the field at last week’s John Deere Classic and made it count, finishing tied for fourth. This came in just Gotterup’s fourth PGA Tour start as a professional.
Svensson, a Canadian, has three career wins on the Korn Ferry Tour (the PGA Tour’s developmental tour). Two of those wins came in 2021. Svensson has made the cut in six straight events and finished tied for 24th at the John Deere Classic.
Streelman is one of the most accomplished players in the Barbasol Championship field. The 43-year-old has a pair of PGA Tour wins to his name, along with top-19 finishes in all four majors. Streelman was tied for 41st at the John Deere Classic.
Hubbard has made the cut in his last five events and had a strong John Deere Classic, shooting in the 60s all four rounds. He finished the event tied for 13th.
Pendrith, a Canadian, hasn’t played on the PGA Tour since early March at The Players Championship, where he finished tied for 13th. He discovered he broke a rib following that tournament, and a potential return last week at the John Deere Classic was delayed due to a positive COVID-19 test.
Kizzire is a two-time PGA Tour winner (no wins since January 2018), and his season has been a mixed bag. After missing three straight cuts, Kizzire finished tied for 64th at the Travelers Championship and tied for 16th at the John Deere Classic.
Among the golfers in the field with local ties, Matti Schmid has one of the best chances of winning.
A German who played at Louisville, Schmid was last year’s DP World Tour Rookie of the Year. Schmid was also the low amateur at the 2021 Open Championship.
Schmid is listed at +8000 by Bet MGM.
Weather
According to Accuweather, there’s a good chance storms may disrupt the early rounds of play in Nicholasville.
The forecast calls for a 53% probability of thunderstorms on Thursday: “Variable cloudiness with a couple of showers and a thunderstorm; hot.”
The forecast calls for a 57% probability of thunderstorms on Friday: “Mostly cloudy, hot and humid with a couple of showers and a heavy t-storm.”
The forecast calls for a 48% probability of thunderstorms on Saturday: “Cloudy and humid with a heavy thunderstorm.”
The good news? Once we get to Sunday, it should be smooth sailing for the close of the tournament.
Sunday’s forecast, per Accuweather, calls for a high of 87 degrees and a low of 64, with less than a 10% chance of rain.
International influence, other changes
There are plenty of differences at the Barbasol Championship this year, from the tournament’s new time frame that no longer puts it opposite The Open, to the automatic berth into The Open that will be earned by the Barbasol winner.
There’s also an expanded field at this year’s Barbasol Championship, with 156 golfers set to contest the tournament (up from 132 last year).
Of these players, 50 are from the DP World Tour.
Another change has come behind-the-scenes for the tournament.
The new tournament director is Darren Nelson, who assumed the director’s role after Bryan Pettigrew stepped down in January after running the event since 2019.
Nelson was the assistant tournament director last year.
Nelson told the Herald-Leader’s John Clay that one of the biggest topics in sports right now — the Saudi-backed LIV Tour — likely won’t impact smaller PGA Tour events like the Barbasol Championship.
“It will definitely not have an effect on the tournament this year,” Nelson told Clay. “And, honestly, I don’t see it affecting the event next year, either. We’re in a spot in the summer where guys want to play here or they need to come play here, some from the DP World Tour. I think those events in the fall will be most impacted with his new calendar schedule the PGA Tour is going to.”
What to know about Keene Trace
This week’s course will play 7,328 yards and as a par 72.
There will be 76 bunkers along the course, with large greens leaving the potential for some lengthy work with the putter.
Jim Herman’s winning performance in 2019 is the 72-hole record at Keene Trace (262 strokes).
The 18-hole record is a 61 shot by Kelly Kraft in the third round in 2019.
Past winners
This will be the seventh overall edition of the Barbasol Championship, and the fourth time the event is played in Central Kentucky.
The first three editions of the tournament were played in Alabama from 2015 through 2017.
The event has been held in Nicholasville in 2018, 2019 and 2021, as the 2020 event didn’t happen due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The all-time winners of the Barbasol Championship are:
▪ 2015: Scott Piercy
▪ 2016: Aaron Baddeley (playoff)
▪ 2017: Grayson Murray
▪ 2018: Troy Merritt
▪ 2019: Jim Herman
▪ 2021: Séamus Power (playoff)
There are three past Barbasol champions in this week’s field: Herman (2019), Murray (2017) and Baddeley (2016).
PGA Barbasol Championship
When: Thursday through Sunday
Where: Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville (Champions Course)
TV: 4-7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 3-6 p.m. Sunday (Golf Channel)
Tickets: Visit BarbasolChampionship.com/Tickets
