The main 2026 PGA Tour season has come to a fitting conclusion, with Scottie Scheffler doing Scottie Scheffler things by winning the Tour Championship. All is right with the golf world.
But it has been an eventful ride from New Year’s to Labor Day. Hawaii got rather unceremoniously excised from the tour rotation. Brooks Koepka came home. An entirely new two-tiered system was proposed and ratified in a matter of months. And the tour’s chief rival is on the brink of bankruptcy.
All in all, you have to say it’s been a banner year for the PGA Tour. Outgoing commissioner Jay Monahan held the line against a pandemic followed by LIV Golf’s five-year insurgence, and incoming commissioner and CEO Brian Rolapp has proven to be nimble and unafraid of doing what’s necessary to maintain the tour’s primacy in the golf realm.
While Scheffler led the tour in both birdie percentage and bogey avoidance, Si Woo Kim made the most birdies (417) and Sahith Theegala carded the most bogeys (275) in 2026. Our season-ending Birdies & Bogeys will offer a few awards to wrap up the 2026 PGA Tour campaign:
PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Scottie Scheffler. A couple of years ago, all the comparisons to Tiger Woods seemed like a reach. And while he will never be the charismatic influence that Woods was/is and he may never reach Tiger’s 82 wins and 15 majors, Scheffler has proven to be the biggest force even in an era with Rory McIlroy at peak power. He led the tour in so many statistical categories, including the lowest scoring average of all time. Scheffler sailed past Tiger in official career money last week and at this point it would be a shock if he does not exceed Tiger’s record of 281 consecutive weeks at No. 1 by Halloween of 2028.
YEAR OF THE YEAR: Wyndham Clark. While his peers are more than likely going to define the player of the year differently and vote Scheffler for his remarkable consistency, given a polygraph test the majority would probably prefer Clark’s three wins that included a major (U.S. Open) over Scheffler’s three wins and all that FedEx Cup money.
COMEBACK OF THE YEAR: Gary Woodland. You could make an argument here for Clark as well, but there is no better feel-good story in golf this year than Woodland’s inspiring perseverance through PTSD from his 2023 brain surgery. He won in Houston and reached the Tour Championship for the first time since winning the U.S. Open in 2019. It’s impossible not to root for him.
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Michael Brennan. Technically the tour doesn’t consider the 24-year-old a rookie since he stepped up and won his first tour start as a sponsor exemption at the Bank of Utah Championship last Oct. 26. He played only four fall events last year, that’s it. The NCAA would give him a redshirt year for that. This was his rookie FedEx Cup season, and he stepped up again at the end to win the Wyndham Championship. Alex Fitzpatrick had an inspiring run to a T4 at the Tour Championship after taking up his card following his team win with big brother, Matt, and will probably collect the official Arnold Palmer Award; Kristoffer Reitan won the signature event at Quail Hollow; and Jackson Koivun has illustrated his next-big-thing status with a win in a very small window. But with two wins in 10 months, the big-hitting Brennan warrants the nod.
SURPRISES OF THE YEAR: Aaron Rai and Ryan Fox. We like our superstars to play the lead in the blockbusters. When supporting actors steal the scene on the biggest stages, you want those guys to be likeable. Rai may be the sweetest and nicest player in golf, so nobody could begrudge him winning the PGA Championship. Likewise, Fox – the Open’s champion golfer of the year – is a no-nonsense, 39-year-old New Zealander you’d most like to hang out with, and his refreshing pace of play should be injected into the veins of everyone on earth.
PART-TIMER OF THE YEAR: Rory McIlroy. Rory McIlroy has been largely scarce since winning his second straight green jacket in April and he didn’t play his required 15 events on the PGA Tour. But his feat at Augusta National is the one we’ll remember most from 2026, as he joined Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods as the only players to win back-to-back Masters. It sets up the biggest major story of the year in 2027 – can he three-peat? Scheffler (U.S. Open) and Jordan Spieth (PGA) are lined up right behind chasing their career slams.
SHOT OF THE YEAR: Cameron Young. With a Players Championship hanging in the balance all square heading to the last, Young stepped up to the toughest tee shot at TPC Sawgrass on the 18th hole and ripped a record 375-yard drive that drew perfectly around the water and set up a short wedge and easy par while Matt Fitzpatrick struggled to a bogey. “The overarching thought is I’m going to hit the best shot of my life right here,” Young said. “I don’t know if I can think of one that’s better.” He just wishes Fox’s drive, approach and birdie putt on 18 in the Open, which edged him by a stroke, weren’t such high quality.
TOP INFLUENCER AWARD: NFL. You didn’t think this was going to Good Good, did you? The football behemoth is at the forefront of PGA Tour planning, and not just because it plucked CEO Brian Rolapp from the NFL’s ranks. The future model is conceding September through January to the ratings leader by not even pitting its Championship Series against it come 2028. All of this is in an effort to get a bigger piece of what’s left over when the next media rights are negotiated. We’ll miss Kapalua in January, but it is what it is.
NO-FLUKE AWARD: Chris Gotterup. In case anyone was wondering whether the former top NCAA player’s successful links fortnight in 2025 was a blip, Gotterup signaled he’s here for the long haul with three wins this season including a strong rally from five behind on Sunday at the John Deere Classic. It’ll be fun to see how Gotterup will fare in his first international team opportunity at the Presidents Cup.
PUTTER OF THE YEAR: Wyndham Clark. Largely a non-factor since trashing an Oakmont locker the previous summer, Clark was especially dismal on the greens where he ranked 147th on tour in strokes gained putting through the Florida swing this season. Then he started using a Ping Scottsdale Tec Ally Blue Onset putter and has climbed to 24th in strokes gained on the greens, winning three times including the U.S. Open. It was his Sunday 60 at the Byron Nelson – when he made 158 feet of putts en route to nine birdies and an eagle, setting a ShotLink-era record with 12.573 strokes gained putting on the field for the week – that prompted him to sign an exclusive putter contract with Ping.
BEST CALL: Patrick Reed. The 2018 Masters champion made an impulse decision not to re-up with LIV just before the season opener and instead spent the year leading the DP World Tour’s Race to Dubai and will be back on the PGA Tour in full standing for 2027 (likely along with fellow ex-LIVster Eugenio Chacarra). Whether Reed saw the writing on the wall of LIV’s pending demise or just got lucky with the timing, it was a masterstroke of decision-making and in many ways has helped rehabilitate his villain persona with fans.
BEST PERFORMANCE NOMINEE: Brooks Koepka. Since returning from LIV, Koepka has been genuinely appreciative of the support he’s received from the fans, the tour and his peers. That is real. So is his humility regarding his game that was not up to his five-time major-winning standards. What was impressive was that Koepka never broke character. He never got surly. Never snapped at critics. Never went woe-is-me sitting in vain to get into a signature event as an alternate. Never ripped his former employer despite ample opportunity and material to work with on that front. Koepka played the good soldier better than Gary Cooper in “Sergeant York.”
BUT THE OSCAR GOES TO: Bryson DeChambeau. For the last couple of years, Bryson has played the role of charming well enough that even his harshest critics had to wonder whether they’d read him wrong. Nope. After declining all opportunities to speak while missing the cut in three majors, he melted down over a ruling against him at Royal Birkdale and held the whole field hostage for an hour as his unprecedented protestations, field-trip reenactment and reported plea to place a phone call to get a 42-time club champion to weigh in delayed the release of starting times. His true colors showed.
ONE-HIT WONDERS: Tiger and Phil. The two central characters of the last three decades each made exactly one competitive appearance in 2026, and we have to wonder if we’ve seen the last of them as competitors. Tiger Woods played in the final TGL match in March to offer hope he might tee it up in the Masters, only to be involved a few days later in another auto accident. A DUI charge led to his retreat to Europe to undergo rehab. Phil Mickelson played just once on LIV in South Africa but skipped the rest of the season and all the majors citing a family-health issue. Reported inappropriate contact with an employee at a California club that revoked his membership only makes his potential return to the stage more awkward.
DOORSTEP AWARD: Sam Burns. A Sunday charge at Shinnecock and a Sunday stumble at Royal Birkdale join the Sunday damper he suffered last year at Oakmont on the close-call major register. They also place Burns on the current list of best players without a major, joining Tommy Fleetwood, Cameron Young, Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Åberg.
SIBLINGS OF THE YEAR: The Fitzpatricks. The English brothers wrenched the title from the Lees (Min Woo and Minjee) with a commanding 2026 that saw Matt win three times and finish runner-up in the Players and Alex take up his PGA Tour card midseason and spend the next four months proving emphatically that it wasn’t all big brother who won them the Zurich Classic of New Orleans team event.
TANTRUMS OF THE YEAR: LIV ensemble. It’s been a stressful season for the defectors, so it’s understandable that they were a little on edge. DeChambeau’s extended whine regarding his penalty at the Open was the epitome of disgrace. Joaquin Niemann netted the first penalty for misbehavior at Shinnecock for his club heave almost nobody saw in the gloaming, but he fully owned up to it and has endorsed the crackdown. Sergio Garcia’s driver misconduct on the tee box at Augusta National was unseemly but very on brand. And Jon Rahm has barely skirted the conduct police on several occasions.
NON-SCHEFFLER STATS OF THE YEAR: Si Woo Kim. The former Players champ led the tour in birdies (417), sub-70 rounds (55) and sub-par rounds (66). Considering he’s only 109th in strokes gained putting, that’s pretty impressive. Can he be the leader who sparks an International Team upset at Medinah?
GEEZERS OF THE YEAR: Adam Scott and Justin Rose. The two 46-year-olds reached the Tour Championship and have remained staples of their respective cup teams long past when most golfers start tapering off. Rose blew the field away at Torrey Pines in January. Only his midseason switch to newbie McLaren irons made anyone wonder if he was slipping. Scott was in contention at East Lake and will be the heart of the Presidents Cups International Team for the 12th consecutive time.
LONGEST PUTT: Bronson Burgoon. He played in only two PGA Tour events all season, and only got that many because he finished T10 on a sponsor’s exemption in the Houston Open. But he converted that second chance into a highlight when he drained a 90-foot, 1-inch putt on the 11th hole at TPC San Antonio in the third round of the Valero Texas Open.
KALSHI AWARD: Jackson Koivun and Blades Brown. If you’re betting on the prediction market for who is going to be the next tour great, these are your top choices. They’ll both get to validate lofty expectations in their first full seasons on tour in 2027, and I wouldn’t bet against them making big splashes.