PGA Tour on Pin High Press

The Cadillac Championship Returns to Doral, Ten Years Late

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The PGA Tour goes back to Doral on Thursday after a ten-year absence, and the tournament that opens at the Blue Monster bears almost no resemblance to the one that left it. The Cadillac Championship in its previous life was a World Golf Championship, the strongest field in regular-season golf, played by a hundred-or-so of the best players in the world for a purse that was generous by 2016 standards and looks quaint by 2026’s. The version that begins this week is a 72-player no-cut signature event, with a $20 million purse and 700 FedEx Cup points to the winner, on a course that Gil Hanse spent 2014 reworking and that has since hosted four LIV Golf seasons in the years the PGA Tour was somewhere else.

The Fitzpatrick Brothers Win the Zurich Classic, and Alex Wins a Tour Card

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The image will travel further than the score did. Alex Fitzpatrick, hands over his face, crouched on the eighteenth green at TPC Louisiana on Sunday afternoon, having tapped in from less than a foot to win the Zurich Classic of New Orleans alongside his older brother. He told the cameras afterwards that he could not feel his hands, his legs, or anything else. The walk from the green to the scoring tent took longer than it usually does. The Fitzpatricks had won by a single shot at thirty-one under par, the lowest winning total in the event’s history, and Alex Fitzpatrick had earned full PGA Tour playing privileges by virtue of being the right side of a 35-yard bunker shot his brother had hit moments earlier.

In Praise of Team Golf: Why the Zurich Classic Matters More Than You Think

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Professional golf is, for fifty-one weeks of the year, a profoundly individual pursuit. A man stands over his ball, alone with his thoughts and his yardage, and the outcome of the shot belongs entirely to him. This is one of the game’s great virtues — the absence of a teammate to blame, the impossibility of hiding behind someone else’s performance — but it is also, occasionally, one of its limitations. When every week looks the same, when every leaderboard is a column of names arranged by a number, the sameness can become a kind of anaesthesia.

Fitzpatrick Completes Harbour Town Masterclass With Second RBC Heritage Title

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There are golfers who win tournaments and golfers who own them. Matt Fitzpatrick, walking off the 18th green at Harbour Town Golf Links on Sunday evening with his second RBC Heritage title in four years, belongs firmly in the second category. The Englishman entered the final round three shots clear of Scottie Scheffler and never once gave the impression that the gap was in danger of closing. A measured closing round of 68, constructed with the precision and patience that have become his signature, delivered a wire-to-wire victory and a winning total of twenty-one under par that left the rest of the field with nothing to do but tip their caps.

Fitzpatrick Takes Command at Harbour Town With a Friday 63

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If Thursday at the RBC Heritage belonged to Ludvig Aberg and his bogey-free 63, Friday belonged to the man who knows Harbour Town perhaps better than anyone currently in the field. Matt Fitzpatrick matched that number — eight under par, no wasted strokes, no moments where the course looked like it had any say in the matter — and in doing so moved to fourteen under for the tournament and one shot clear of Viktor Hovland at the top of a leaderboard that is beginning to take shape for the weekend.

Ludvig Aberg Takes Charge at Harbour Town With a Statement 63

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of anger that drives good golf. Not the club-throwing, expletive-laden sort that makes for awkward television, but the quieter kind — the controlled burn of a player who knows he left something on the table and has decided, firmly, that it will not happen again. Ludvig Aberg arrived at Harbour Town Golf Links on Thursday carrying precisely that energy, and by the time he walked off the 18th green with a bogey-free eight-under 63 on his card, it was clear that whatever happened at Augusta National the week before had been processed, filed, and converted into something useful.

LIV Golf and the Rumour That Will Not Go Away

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The shotgun start at Club de Golf Chapultepec went off on Thursday afternoon without incident, which in the current climate counts as a significant achievement for LIV Golf. The 54-hole event in Mexico City is the latest stop on a 2026 schedule that, as of Tuesday evening, nobody was entirely sure would be completed. Reports from the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times all landed within hours of each other earlier this week, each carrying the same essential message: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is reconsidering its commitment to the league it created, and a formal announcement could come at any time.

In Defence of the Short Golf Course

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A confession up front. The best round of tournament golf I have watched in years was the 2024 Open at Royal Troon, which measured 7,385 yards on the card, which is long enough, but every major since has pushed past 7,500 and the conversation has pushed along with them. More length. More rough. More bunkers. More elevated tees to add more length. The modern professional calendar has developed a kind of yardage anxiety, as if a course that does not break 7,400 is somehow failing to hold up against the players.

Justin Thomas Returns to Defend at Harbour Town, and the Plaid Jacket Suddenly Means Something Different

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of pressure that attaches to a defending champion who has not had a great year. It is quieter than the pressure of being the favourite, and more uncomfortable, because it asks the player to walk back into a place where everything once went right and pretend that the intervening twelve months never happened. Justin Thomas is the defending champion at the RBC Heritage this week, and the intervening twelve months have happened to him in ways that are not easy to set aside.

Justin Thomas Returns to Harbour Town With a Title to Defend

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Justin Thomas walked onto the range at Harbour Town on Wednesday afternoon in the plaid jacket he earned one year ago. It is not a garment you wear ironically. Thomas has had, by his own admission, the strangest three seasons of his career — a long slide from the heights of the 2022 PGA Championship, a swing change that did not take, a putter change that did, and a stretch where the self-belief that had always been his calling card seemed to be running on fumes. The 2025 RBC Heritage stopped that slide. It is therefore a tournament he will never again turn up at casually.

RBC Heritage 2026 Preview: A Harbour Town Reset After Augusta

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The week after the Masters is a curious thing on the PGA Tour. The sport’s focal point shifts from Georgia pines and glass-smooth greens to the tidal creeks and live oaks of Hilton Head, and a field that spent seven months working towards Augusta is asked to show up again and play another signature event as if the emotional landing gear had been fully retracted. Some players embrace it. Others, politely, do not. The RBC Heritage has always had to negotiate with that reality, and the 2026 edition is no different.

Texas Open Preview: The Last Card Before Augusta Punches the Final Ticket

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Valero Texas Open occupies a strange and rather wonderful spot on the calendar. It’s the last Tour event before the Masters, which means it serves as both the final tune-up for players already in the field at Augusta and the absolute last chance for a few hopefuls who can punch their Masters ticket only by winning. Two completely different sets of motivations, on the same leaderboard, in the same week.

Gary Woodland's Win Is the Reason We Still Watch Sport

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Modern professional golf has spent the last several years trying very hard to make us cynical. The endless LIV negotiations, the lawyer-led press releases, the manufactured drama, the player-versus-player feuds that play out in interviews and on social media — it has been exhausting to follow even for those of us who get paid to write about it. There are weeks when the easiest reaction is just to look away.

Gary Woodland Wins Houston Open by Five for First Title in Seven Years

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Gary Woodland walked off the 18th green at Memorial Park on Sunday afternoon and held his hat in his hand for several seconds before he could quite manage a smile. It had been nearly seven years — and a lot more than seven years’ worth of golf — since the last time he’d won a tournament on the PGA Tour. Sunday afternoon in Houston, the wait finally ended.

Houston Open Preview: Memorial Park's Last Stand Before Augusta

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Texas Children’s Houston Open has worked hard over the past few seasons to establish itself as the unofficial final tune-up before the Masters. The slot in the calendar has done most of the heavy lifting. Tour pros looking for one more competitive round before Augusta now make the trip to Memorial Park as a matter of routine.

Why Fitzpatrick's Valspar Win Matters More Than the Trophy

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of professional golf heartbreak that the rest of us cannot quite imagine. It’s the missed putt at the 18th to win, watched by millions, replayed for days, and dragged into every press conference for months afterwards. Most players who lose a tournament that way describe needing weeks just to feel normal again. Some never feel quite the same.

Fitzpatrick's Redemption: Englishman Wins Valspar with 18th-Hole Birdie

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Seven days after a par putt slid past the hole on the 18th at TPC Sawgrass and cost him The Players Championship, Matt Fitzpatrick stood on the same hole at Innisbrook with a 13-foot birdie putt to win the Valspar Championship. This time, the ball found the centre of the cup.

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf: Where Things Stand in 2026

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In June 2023, the golf world was rocked by the announcement that the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had agreed to a framework for merging their competing enterprises. Nearly three years later, the two sides are not only separate — they appear to be moving further apart.