Akshay Bhatia is the 2023 Barracuda champion

The 25^th Barracuda Championship has concluded, and there were many memorable moments during this year’s tournament in Truckee, California. Let’s take a look:

The new Barracuda champion

Akshay Bhatia won his first PGA Tour title at the 2023 Barracuda Championship, and at 21, he is one of the youngest winners in the tournament’s history. Bhatia received $684,000 from the prize pool and has been granted an exemption from the upcoming PGA Tour for the next two seasons. At age 17, he participated in his first PGA tour event and eventually won his first Korn Ferry at 19 years old. 

"It's obviously been a really tough road. I've had a lot of up, a lot of down. A lot of good, a lot of bad," Bhatia said. "But I knew I was going to get here. It was just matter of time.”

The Barracuda Championship has been using a Modified Stableford scoring system since 2012, so points are allocated depending on the amount of strokes a player takes per hole. Bhatia won the tournament with 40 points, however, both Bhatia and Patrick Rodgers were tied for 40 points at the end of the final round, which prompted a sudden-death playoff to determine the ultimate champion. According to the PGA Tour, both Bhatia and Brian Harman (the Open Championship winner) made history as the only left-handed individuals to win on the same day while on tour. 

Dedication to the environment and local communities at the Barracuda Championship

The Barracuda Championship partnered with Youth on Course once again to bring back the caddie program as well as Junior Golf Day. This allowed 80 Youth on Course members to serve as caddies at the Pro-Am, and they also got the opportunity to play golf with peers on the Old Greenwood course.

In an effort to encourage sustainable practices, some attendees participated in Bike to the Barracuda throughout championship weekend, and by doing so, they were able to receive exclusive benefits such as 20% off of tournament tickets and one free beer from tournament sponsors FiftyFifty Brewing Co.

Additionally, the Barracuda Championship contributes to charitable causes annually, and since 2022, the organization has donated nearly $5 million to different nonprofits throughout America. The amount of money raised this year will be announced on the Barracuda Championship website soon.

Barracuda CEO Hatem Naguib joined NBC Sports to discuss the importance of our organization’s commitment to helping local communities:

“Giving back to the community is a very important cultural value that we have at Barracuda, and it’s a shared value we have with the PGA Tour. This year we will be announcing once again that we’ll be doing the Barracuda Bonus, which will be $100,000 donated to the charity of choice each day on the 12^th hole if you score a double eagle.”

If you’d like to see a recap of some key moments during the event, check out the PGA Tour highlights on YouTube.

We hope that you had a great time enjoying all the action that took place during the 2023 Barracuda Championship, and we look forward to sharing details about next year’s tournament soon.