The penultimate stop of the 2026 season brings the PGA Tour back to Austin for the first time since the 2023 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
The inaugural Austin Championship will be contested at Omni Barton Creek’s Fazio Canyons Course, with the first groupings set to tee off 8 a.m. ET Thursday.
Last week produced the Tour’s newest winner, Blades Brown. At only 19-years-old, he shot 63 on Sunday to beat Ben James on the second playoff hole to become the youngest PGA Tour winner in 88 years.
James let a four-shot lead get away, but the runner-up finish lifted him nine spots to No. 53 in the FedExCup fall rankings. Brown, counted as a PGA Tour member for the first time, moved up to No. 59. Both of them sit inside the Aon Next 10 line with two events left.
With next year’s Tour status on the line, here are the players who need a big week in Austin:
Doug Ghim (No. 58)
Ghim has been one of the steadiest players of the fall. He opened with a tie for 17th in Asheville, then finished second to Austin Smotherman at the Bank of Utah Championship and tied for sixth at the Mexico Open. He sat out Los Cabos and slipped from 55th to 58th.
He played college golf at the University of Texas, and is one of four former Longhorns in a field playing only a short drive from campus. He is still chasing his first Tour win, and the oddsmakers have him among the favorites to take the title in his old college town.
Pierceson Coody (No. 60)
Coody holds the last Aon Next 10 spot. He tied for sixth at the Mexico Open and tied for 33rd in Los Cabos, which lifted him to 60th. Coody grew up in Plano and also played at Texas, so he also gets to chase a Next 10 spot back in the town where he went to school.
Max Homa (No. 61)
Homa skipped the World Wide Technology Championship and watched the players around him make up ground. Blades Brown’s arrival in the standings then pushed him from 60th to 61st, the first spot outside the Aon Next 10.
Billy Horschel, Kevin Yu and Chandler Phillips (Nos. 98-100)
These three are inside the number, though not by much. Horschel and Phillips missed the cut in Los Cabos, and Yu made the weekend and finished T65. Brown’s arrival pushed all three down a spot. Phillips holds the last card at No. 100, one spot ahead of Day, who is not playing. A missed cut in Austin could cost any of the three a spot heading into the final week.
Chris Kirk (No. 102)
Kirk opened with a 63 in Los Cabos and started Sunday five shots off the lead. A closing 71 dropped him into a tie for 12th, but the week still moved him from 110th to 102nd.
Mackenzie Hughes and Taylor Pendrith (Nos. 103 and 104)
The two Canadians each missed the cut in Los Cabos and sit a few spots outside the top 100.
David Ford (No. 113)
The PGA Tour rookie played his way into this conversation last week. He shot four rounds in the 60s at El Cardonal, finished fifth and jumped 12 spots, from 125th to 113th. Another strong performance in Austin would put the top 100 in range.
