ARDEN, NORTH CAROLINA | It was January 1, 2026, the holiday decorations still twinkling, and Brendan Valdes had every reason to be happy.
He had become engaged to his girlfriend, Rachel Gourley, shortly before Christmas and they had made a trip to England to share the moment with her family.
Back home in south Florida, Valdes was prepping for his 2026 Korn Ferry Tour season, charging into a promising professional career after being part of the 2024 NCAA Championship-winning team at Auburn, where he was a teammate of Jackson Koivun.
That’s when he found out he had cancer.
What Valdes thought was a pesky chest cold turned out to be primary mediastinal lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer that presented itself with a 9-centimeter mass that was pressing on his heart and lung.
“I was completely blindsided. I felt good of course. It was just I had a lung infection. That’s the only reason I went in, just because I had a regular old sickness,” Valdes said.
“We never would’ve found it without that and it might have been too late at that point in time, so I truthfully got a little bit lucky that we found it as early as we did.”
Nine life-altering months later, the 23-year-old Valdes is at the Biltmore Championship Asheville this week, making his first post-cancer start after receiving a sponsor invitation to the first event of the PGA Tour’s fall schedule.
Valdes, who finished second in the 2025 PGA Tour University rankings, earning a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour, had mixed results in his first season, highlighted by a T3 at the Price Cutter Charity Championship. He played three PGA Tour events, making the cut in all three and then his career came to a harrowing halt.
“It came out of nowhere. I will say golf definitely went secondary at that point.” – Brendan Valdes
Just a few weeks before his diagnosis, Valdes had been playing the final stage of PGA Tour Q-School and suddenly he was facing a long, grueling life built around chemotherapy treatments.
“It came out of nowhere. I will say golf definitely went secondary at that point,” Valdes said.
For more than six months, Valdes didn’t swing a club other than to roll a few putts in his home when he felt good enough. He gained approximately 30 pounds during his treatments.
“None of it was muscle, that’s for sure,” Valdes said.
If getting a spot in the field at the Cliffs at Walnut Cove this week is a high point in Valdes’ journey, there have more than a few low moments.
His fiancée and his mother were in the room when he learned his diagnosis, sharing the unexpected news with him.
After his first round of chemo, Valdes developed complications that led to pneumonia and a collapsed lung. Later, he developed mouth sores that were so severe he could not eat nor drink, sending him into the hospital for a week.
Finally, Valdes said during a series of interviews Tuesday, he can focus on golf again.
There is, however, another element to the Valdes story. For several years, he has run a charity golf tournament at Orange Tree Golf Club in Orlando in memory of Ian Supra, a friend of his sister and him who passed away from esophageal cancer when they were in high school together.
With a clear medical prognosis, Valdes is in the North Carolina mountains this week believing in himself and his game.
For five years, the proceeds of their charity event have gone toward granting children with cancer experiences such as visiting Disney World or Universal Studios.
“Just try and help them – give them a few days of having a fun time, because it’s not a fun process,” said Valdes, who now understands that more than before.
As Valdes talked Tuesday about his experience, his excitement about being part of a tour event was almost contagious. Positive by nature, Valdes has worked on both his body and his game as he restarts his career.
He’s lost the weight he gained and he’s still working to regain his stamina.
“Just being out there walking 18 used to not feel like much of anything. I’m a younger guy. As soon as I came back, especially during the process, it was tough for me to walk to the mailbox. It’s taken a few months to get back to the point in time where I feel like I’m able to walk 18 holes and not be winded at all,” Valdes said.
With a clear medical prognosis, Valdes is in the North Carolina mountains this week believing in himself and his game.
“I feel like I’m sharp. I definitely wouldn’t want to take a sponsor invite spot if I didn’t feel like I could compete,” Valdes said.
“The expectations are just to go out and have fun. I mean, of course I’m always going to try and win. I’m never going to play an event that I don’t feel like I have the ability to. But I’m just going to stay confident and committed and just go out there and have fun.”