By Dylan Wallace
After a week off, Brownstown native Chris Baker will be back on the greens this weekend as he gets set to play in the Barracuda Championship.
Baker will be teeing off at 1:08 p.m. today at Tahoe Mountain Club in California. He is in a group with Michael Gligic of Canada and Stephan Jaeger of Germany.
The Barracuda Championship was founded in 1999, and it is an alternative event on the PGA Tour. The WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational also will be going on this weekend in Tennessee.
The last time Baker competed was two weeks ago at the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minnesota. He made the cut in the 3M Open and finished -3 over four days, which was good enough for tied for 51st.
He tied with Bubba Watson, M.J. Daffue, Aaron Baddeley, Adam Schenk, Ryan Brehm and Camilo Villegas.
Baker’s finish earned him 6.629 FedEx Cup points, so he now has 88.412 points and is ranked 198th in the FedEx Cup rankings.
During his week off this past weekend, Baker was actually in Brownstown, and he was donating items to help raise money for Hickory Hills Golf Club, the course he grew up playing on.
Baker is a 2004 graduate of Brownstown Central High School before playing Division I golf at Iowa State University. He turned pro back in 2008 and has maintained that status for the past 13 years.
His next task starts today in California, where Baker hopes to continue to make the cut and earn points to work his way up the FedEx Cup standings.
The Barracuda Championship will be televised by the Golf Channel on Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to noon and on Golf Digital from noon to 1 p.m. Then Saturday and Sunday, it will be on the Golf Channel from 6 to 9 p.m.