Let's face it, the Barracuda Championship is for us and nobody else. It's the band you know will never be Oasis and that's fine and look at least it's going to be possible to get Hope Of The States tickets for Islington in October, isn't it. Nobody else knows and that really is part of the beauty. This is ours. No need to get wound up by someone in the crowd saying 'oh look, there's Scottie Schauffele!' because out here that sort of thing simply cannot happen.

So I'll take it as read that you recognise the word stableford, that you know how a birdie equates to two points, an eagle five; how a bogey only loses you one and what that means for the dynamics of this event. You might even have read/endured my cause and effect lecture before: just because the best stroke play score often wins, that doesn't mean the format is irrelevant. How did they get to that score and was it affected by the format is what you should be asking.

The field for this final opposite event of the season is actually quite good. Despite Nicolai Hojgaard's late qualification for the Open, there's still a 2023 Ryder Cup player here, MAX HOMA. There's also a Presidents Cup player or two, plus a Signature Event winner, Kurt Kitayama. The defending champion still has a potentially bright future even if he wouldn't have wanted to be defending, and all in all this really isn't bad.

As for the course, that stays the same (albeit nines switched since 2023). Old Greenwood is a par 71 which will play more like 7,000 yards than the 7,480 at which it is listened, because we're in the mountains here at Lake Tahoe, California. It's tree-lined and somewhat tricky, but the rough isn't really a factor, drives go forever, and there are ample opportunities to bag an eagle to go with the necessary haul of 20-plus birdies.

That blend of format, altitude and a weaker-than-elite field ought to lend itself to shocks and there have undoubtedly been some. Equally, it's hard to escape the fact that recent form has been an excellent clue. Nick Dunlap had been 10th two weeks prior to winning at about 33/1 and every winner of this since 2016, across two courses, arrived with good golf behind them. Lately, all bar one had a top-10 finish within two starts.

It's quite difficult to draw those champions together otherwise. In the last two years we've had two young players with big potential, prior to that we had a veteran with a touch of class, and Erik van Rooyen falls into neither category. Neither does Richy Werenski but he, like Dunlap and Akshay Bhatia, was very high up in the birdie average stats, while all these players are good with their irons when firing on all cylinders.

Try as I might to find a reason not to include him, Homa has to head the staking plan.

We all know by now that Homa has endured a torrid time basically since all the way back in April 2024, when he contended for the Masters. Another top 10 followed at the Wells Fargo but it took more than a year for the next one to arrive, and that when he dropped down in grade to contest the John Deere Classic.

However, fifth place there really was encouraging – and this is a grade lower still. Had Homa perhaps putted the lights out, chipped in here and there or stayed on from the clouds to sneak fifth I might've taken a different view, but that's not what happened. He was in the mix, favourite to win during the final round and still close with a few holes to play, and actually his short-game probably cost him in the end.

Crucially, in each of the four rounds he gained strokes both off the tee and with his approaches, the kind of ball-striking we haven't seen for a while and maybe a hint that he can kick on. If that does prove to be the case, he will more the justify what is a big correction in terms of his position in the market. Considering his world-class levels, I don't think it looks at all like an overreaction.