Former Fort Collins resident Sam Saunders has taken quite a shine to the Barracuda Championship in recent years.
Saunders, who needed a good finish to boost his chances of keeping his fully-exempt PGA Tour status for next season, tied for seventh on Sunday in the tournament in Reno, Nev.
That marks the third straight top-10 in this event for Saunders, Arnold Palmer’s grandson. He finished ninth in 2016 and eighth last year.
The Barracuda Championship utilizes a modified Stableford scoring format, like The International at Castle Pines did from 1986 through 2006. In that format, a birdie and a bogey are worth more than two pars.
Saunders (pictured) had a bad day on Sunday, accumalating a minus-1 point, but finished with 34 points for the week, 13 fewer than champion Andrew Putnam.
It was Saunders’ fourth top 10 showing of the 2017-18 PGA Tour season.
Elsewhere in major professional tour golf:
Two players with strong Colorado ties — former Louisville resident George Cunningham and former University of Colorado golfer Yannik Paul — posted top-five finishes Sunday in the PGA Tour Canada’s Syncrude Oil Country Championship in Edmonton, Alberta.
Cunningham — grandson of the late Chuck Melvin, who played in six Colorado Cup matches — placed third and Paul fifth.
Cunningham, who won a PGA Tour Canada event in June, posted rounds of 67-64-72-65 for a 16-under-par 268 total, which left him five strokes behind champion Tyler McCumber.
Paul shared the lead going into Sunday but dropped four spots on the scoreboard with a final-day 70, a round during which he was stung by a wasp. He went 70-64-66-700 for a 270 total.
