{"id":435913,"date":"2025-07-21T22:10:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T22:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=435913"},"modified":"2025-07-21T22:10:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T22:10:40","slug":"ryan-gerard-clinches-first-pga-tour-victory-at-barracuda-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/ryan-gerard-clinches-first-pga-tour-victory-at-barracuda-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Gerard Clinches First PGA Tour Victory at Barracuda Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/golf\/player\/_\/id\/5076021\/ryan-gerard\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ryan Gerard<\/a> secured his first PGA Tour title on Sunday by winning the 2025 Barracuda Championship at the Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, California. The 25-year-old American delivered a strong final round performance to finish with 47 points in the tournament\u2019s unique scoring format, beating Erik van Rooyen by three points.<\/p>\n<h2>Gerard Delighted With First Ever PGA Tour Win<\/h2>\n<p>Gerard made two key surges during the final round as he scored a birdie and an eagle early on the 2nd and 3rd holes. He repeated the feat with another birdie-eagle combo later on the 10th and 11th holes. Even though he made five bogeys during the round, these strong stretches helped him build a lead. Gerard&#8217;s final tally of 47 points was enough to edge past South Africa\u2019s van Rooyen, who won the same event in 2021. Todd Clements of England finished third with 39 points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeen playing a lot of really good golf,\u201d <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.pgatour.com\/article\/news\/daily-wrapup\/2025\/07\/20\/barracuda-championship-recap-results-tahoe-california-rookie-ryan-gerard-earns-first-pga-tour-victory-modified-stableford\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gerard said after the win<\/a>. \u201cFelt like I haven\u2019t been quite getting the scores out of the shots that I\u2019ve hit. It\u2019s been a long time being a long grind, and it\u2019s pretty cool to end up on top. It\u2019s just like a culmination of a lifetime of work. I can\u2019t tell you how many hours I\u2019ve spent hitting golf balls dreaming of winning on the PGA TOUR. Yeah, it\u2019s really special.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This was Gerard&#8217;s only 47th PGA Tour start, and now he joins the long list of official Tour winners, he is the 999th player to earn a PGA Tour title after coming fifth in the same championship two years.The victory also earns him a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour, 300 <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/pga-tour-slashes-fedex-cup-prize-bold-reform-or-risky-move\/\" target=\"_self\">FedExCup<\/a> points, and a spot in the 2026 PGA Championship.<\/p>\n<h2>Gerard On The Right Path After Thrilling Victory<\/h2>\n<p>Gerard&#8217;s win doesn&#8217;t guarantee him a place in next year\u2019s Masters, meaning he will still need to qualify separately for that major. Along with the title, Gerard takes home approximately $720,000 in prize money. Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Gerard played college golf at the University of North Carolina before turning professional in 2022. He had already shown promise, with wins on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Canada. His victory at the 2024 BMW Charity Pro-Am gave him momentum, but this win on the PGA Tour puts him on a different level.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_435920\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-435920\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-435920\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/07\/USATSI_23512169_168416623_lowres-300x293.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"293\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/07\/USATSI_23512169_168416623_lowres-300x293.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/07\/USATSI_23512169_168416623_lowres-1024x1000.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/07\/USATSI_23512169_168416623_lowres-768x750.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/07\/USATSI_23512169_168416623_lowres-1536x1501.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/33\/2025\/07\/USATSI_23512169_168416623_lowres.jpg 1698w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-435920\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ryan Gerard pulled away from the field on Sunday for a six-shot win. Gerard\u00d5s final-round was 66: he had a 72-hole total of 26-under 259. Gerard makes his way to the award ceremony and thanks supporters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Barracuda Championship uses a modified Stableford scoring system instead of traditional stroke play. Players earn points for birdies and eagles and lose points for bogeys and worse. The championship is co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/2023\/03\/07\/dp-tour-v-liv-players-court-battle\/\" target=\"_self\">DP World Tour<\/a>, giving Gerard valuable ranking points in both systems. His win also means more playing opportunities in upcoming events, more exposure, and a stronger position heading into the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Bill Streicher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ryan Gerard secured his first PGA Tour title on Sunday by winning the 2025 Barracuda Championship at the Tahoe Mountain Club in Truckee, California. The 25-year-old American delivered a strong final round performance to finish with 47 points in the tournament\u2019s unique scoring format, beating Erik van Rooyen by three points. Gerard Delighted With First [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5425,"featured_media":435919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19],"tags":[8149,8148],"class_list":["post-435913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-pga","tag-2025-barracuda-championship","tag-ryan-gerard"],"modified_by":"Ajayi Segun","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435913"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435921,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435913\/revisions\/435921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}