Barracuda notebook: Allred taking advantage of his exemption

RENO — Jason Allred is just happy to be at the Barracuda Championship.

Allred received one of eight sponsor exemptions, and after scoring 21 points over the first 36 holes, he’s showing he deserved it.

“First and foremost, it’s such a gift for me to be here on a sponsor’s exemption,” Allred said after his 10-point day. “Words can’t express for how excited I am to be here, but also how thankful I am that they gave me a shot at it.

“I absolutely love this place. It’s hard to come here and ignore how beautiful it is. Naturally since I was given a spot I was hoping so much that my game would be good. I feel like I’ve been playing well recently, but my results have been up and down. But it’s been couple a days where I played nicely. I have also had some things go well and got some putts to drop.”

Allred has spent much of his season on the web.com Tour, making 15 starts. His best finish was a tie for third at Nova Scotia. He was 29th last week in Utah. This is just his third PGA start of the season, and he’s won less than $8,000.

Allred admits he sometimes puts pressure on himself when he gets free entry into a tournament.

“Last year I was really fortunate to be given three, four spots throughout the year, which was awesome,” he said. “A couple times I think I did (get nervous and feel pressure) because you don’t want to let them down. I know the spots are valuable.”

Allred said his wife and family members have told him he has nothing to lose.

“That said, my tendency is to try so hard to do so well that I’ll get in my own way,” he said. “I probably said to myself 500 times the last few days, ‘Hey, just let it rip. Let it rip.’ It takes a while to get it through my thick head, but it’s been fun to play with a lot of freedom.”

This is Allred’s fourth trip here. He missed the cut in 2005 and 2008, but won $104,250 last year when he shot three rounds in the 60s.

He started fast, scoring nine points thanks to a birdie on No. 11 (his second hole), an eagle from the bunker on No. 13 and a birdie on No. 14. He birdied the par-5 8th.

“I hit 3-wood off the tee, and then I hit a 2-iron into the (13th) green,” he said “I hit a decent shot. It’s a tough green to hit. I just left it up to the right a little and it went in the bunker. I hit a really nice bunker shot, but it was really fortunate that it found the hole.

“That one (bunker) is not bad, especially where that pin was on the left. If I was going to miss, and I wasn’t trying to miss it, that’s the spot to be in. It’s a deep bunker, so I hit it and I ran up the face. I got there just in time to see it go in. It was a fun moment.”

He did bogey the par-3 16th when he missed the green to the right and was unable to get it up and down, but he made that up with the birdie on No. 18.

FORMER CHAMPS

Six former Barracuda champions — Steve Flesch (17), J.J. Henry (24), Matt Bettencourt (12), Vaughn Taylor (18), Chris Riley (11) and John Rollins (9) — have made the cut for this weekend.

The news wasn’t so good for defending champ Geoff Ogilvy, Scott Verplank and Parker McLachlin, all of whom missed the cut.

THE HOLE REPORT

The toughest holes were the par-4 5th and the par-3 16th. The fifth yielded just two birdies, 80 pars, 43 bogeys and six double bogeys. The 16th gave up 10 birdies, 86 pars, 32 bogeys and 3 double bogeys.

The easiest holes were both par-5s — No. 2 and No. 13.

The second hole played to a 4.615. There was one eagle, 57 birdies, 63 pars, nine bogeys and a double-bogey. The 13th played to a 4.523 and gave up seven eagles, 60 birdies, 51 pars, 12 bogeys and one double-bogey.

The course played to a 70.710. There were 13 eagles on the day.

AROUND THE COURSE

The players were gracious with their with some of the younger fans who hung around the scoring area hoping for autographs or a ball. Joe Affrunti came into the area with a handful of balls, much to the delight of the youngsters… John Daly, as usual, sported some pants from his clothing line, Loudmouth. Friday was Boston Red Sox day. Earlier in the week he wore SF Giants pants … Andres Romero gave an autographed ball and hat to the standard bearer that walked with the threesome… It took a score of plus 9 to advance to the weekend.