The PGA Tour is back.
The 2026 season kicks off with the Sony Open in Hawaii, and then will continue for 33 straight weeks.
What makes sports so lovable? It’s the unscripted stories they produce. With 136 rounds to be played on Tour this year, there should be no shortage of drama—and that extends off the course, too, as the circuit ushers in its next era under new leadership.
Here are five storylines that will help define the 2026 PGA Tour season.
Brooks Koepka is back
Let’s get this one out of the way.
In December, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka announced he was leaving LIV Golf after four seasons to prioritize “the needs of his family and staying closer to home.”
That left the door open for Koepka to explore returning to the PGA Tour—creating hullabaloo from the public about how, or if, that would work. Then, the flames were fueled when he applied to regain PGA Tour membership.
Three days later, Koepka was granted his wish—with sanctions.
The 35-year-old was reinstated by the Tour under the inception of a “Returning Member Program.” Koepka won’t be allowed sponsor invites to signature events, he’ll have no Tour equity for five years, can’t collect FedEx Cup bonus money this year and faces a $5 million fine that will go to charity.
He’ll have one of the most anticipated first-round tee times in recent memory when he makes his return at the Farmers Insurance Open later this month. He’ll play the following week, too, at the WM Phoenix Open, an event he has won twice.
An open letter from PGA TOUR CEO Brian Rolapp pic.twitter.com/jiuZk1RiLp
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) January 12, 2026
It’ll be interesting to see how the nine-time Tour winner performs. Last year, on LIV, he had three top 10s in 14 events, finishing 31st in the season-long standings, and missed the cut in three of the four majors. Since winning the 2023 PGA Championship, he hasn’t had a top 10 in a major.
So when he’s in contention this year, the buzz around that tournament will be abundant.
Scottie Scheffler’s historic run
It seems every time Scottie Scheffler tees it up, he puts himself in the same sentence with the game’s greats—including Tiger Woods.
So what’s at stake for him in 2026?
The 29-year-old, who will begin his season next week at the American Express, currently has 19 PGA Tour wins. One more and he’ll claim lifetime Tour membership, plus he’ll amass $100 million in career earnings, joining only Rory McIlroy and Woods.
In the last 50 years, only Woods has amassed 20 wins in a three-season span (21 from 2005–07 and 22 between 1999–2001). Scheffler has 13 official victories in the last two years (seven in ‘24 and six in ‘25), meaning he needs seven in ‘26 to match Woods’s feat.
A combined 101 PGA TOUR wins, including 19 majors 🤝
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 3, 2025
The admiration between Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler is mutual. pic.twitter.com/XqQBjTAezl
In addition, Scheffler has won four straight Player of the Year awards. Only Woods has done that, so if Scheffler can get five straight, he’ll stand alone.
Scheffler has made 64 consecutive cuts, which is currently sixth all-time. Woods is first with 142 and Xander Schauffele is the active leader at 72. Who’s third behind Schauffele and Scheffler? Corey Conners and Vince Whaley at 19.
Scheffler has been world No. 1 for 138 straight weeks. That’s second all-time. Woods had two runs of 264 consecutive weeks (Aug. 1999 to Sept. 2004) and 281 from June 2005 to Oct. 2010.
And after winning the British Open and PGA Championship last year, Scheffler needs the U.S. Open to complete the career Grand Slam. If he emerges victorious in June at Shinnecock, he’ll be tied with Woods as the fastest to complete the feat, and the seventh player ever to do so.
Will slow play continue to be a scourge?
It’s the debate that never seems to die: how can golf fix its pace of play problem?
“I think we're starting to need a new word to talk about this pace of play issue, and it’s respect,” CBS on-course reporter Dottie Pepper said during last year’s broadcast of the Farmers Insurance Open. “For your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasts, for all of it. It’s just gotta get better.”
Rounds can regularly take over five hours to complete. And last season, many were asked, or voluntarily gave, their solution, from Scottie Scheffler, who received a slow play warning at the BMW Championship, to Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Bryson DeChambeau, Charley Hoffman, who penned a letter on the issue, Lucas Glover and Masters chairman Fred Ridley.
Some of those suggestions included drastic measures, such as a shot clock, banning the popular putting routine AimPoint and timing everyone’s entire round, potentially making the results public; though, in 2025, the Tour started publishing select speed-of-play stats.
A year ago, the PGA Tour Americas debuted a new pace of play policy as a trial initiative that “could see broader adoption across PGA Tour-sanctioned competition,” and that appears to have happened.
According to the 2026 PGA Tour player handbook, a player is permitted 40 seconds to play a shot, and there are a few exceptions for 50 seconds. Excessive shot times apply when a player exceeds “120 seconds for the first player in a group to play a stroke; 100 seconds for subsequent players in the group to play a stroke.” The accumulation of excessive stroke times can lead to fines, and if a player or group is put on the clock by the rules officials, it can lead to a one, two, three or even four-stroke penalty and a possible disqualification.
That could result in harsher penalties. For example, the leader of a PGA Tour Americas event in May received a one-stroke deduction. Imagine that happening to McIlroy or Scheffler, especially if it determines the outcome of a tournament? That’d likely get the “speed it up” message across.
However, some are pessimistic that the slow play issue will ever fully evaporate.
“The pace of play debate is funny,” Scheffer said at last year’s RBC Heritage. “I think people want to watch exciting golf. I think that’s what it’s all about. Let’s say if we do all these changes and we save 20 minutes off of a round of golf. Is somebody going to sit down on the couch on Sunday and go, ‘Well, I didn't have five hours to watch a round of golf, but I’ve got four hours and 40 minutes. Now I’m in.’”
Potential unlikely champions
Everyone loves a good redemption story. What are some we could see in 2026?
A number of golf fans want to see Jordan Spieth return to the winner’s circle. The 32-year-old hasn’t won since the 2022 RBC Heritage and had wrist surgery in 2024, causing him to shelve the clubs for seven months. The three-time major winner returned last season in late January, with four top 10s in 14 starts, receiving sponsor exemptions to nearly every signature event.
Will Zalatoris can relate. The 29-year-old plans to return to competition after surgery ended his season last year, after years of back issues. Like Spieth, Zalatoris hasn’t won since 2022, but was once one of the game’s most promising players, with six top 10s in majors from 2020-2022.
Who are some other fan favorites that could provide an inspiring and/or long-awaited victory? To name a few, Gary Woodland, who has recovered from a 2023 brain tumor, Joel Dahmen, Tom Kim, Tony Finau, Sahith Theegala, Rickie Fowler and Bud Cauley, who was injured in a 2018 car crash and didn’t tee it up for nearly four years. Last season, the 35-year-old contended at the Players Championship and made it to the BMW Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
This fortunate bounce off the tee proved crucial to Brian Campbell's winning birdie at the Mexico Open. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/QOyoguaznP
— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) February 24, 2025
Of course, the Cinderella stories rival the comeback stories. Entering last year, Brian Campbell was on nobody’s radar, as a 31-year-old with less than 25 starts on his resume over a decade. Then, he dramatically won twice. Plus, let’s not forget two-time winner Ben Griffin, who quit golf and was a mortgage loan officer a few years ago, or Michael Brennan, winning on a sponsor’s exemption in his third Tour start.
Surely, there will be a Campbell or Griffin-esque story in 2026, along with several other first-timers, like last year with Joe Highsmith, Aldrich Potgieter, Ryan Fox, Min Woo Lee and Cam Young.
The Tour is budding with young talent looking to break through for that coveted maiden title. Luke Clanton, Michael Thorbjornsen, David Ford, Neal Shipley and amateur Jackson Koivun are worth keeping an eye on.
And maybe, that’ll yield a mix of veterans and rookies on each Presidents Cup squad in September.
Changes on the horizon
Is the last year of the PGA Tour as we know it?
New Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has preached a revamp of the circuit, and major changes could be implemented by 2027. Rolapp has preached about scarcity, meaning the schedule could be shortened from its current format of over 40 tournaments.
Therefore, some long-time events could be on the chopping block.
The sponsorship deals of the Sony Open, Charles Schwab Challenge, Wyndham Championship, Puerto Rico Open and Farmers Insurance Open are up after 2026. It’d be hard to see the Tour cut bait with the Charles Schwab (Colonial is the longest-running host venue for non-majors) and Torrey Pines’s iconic views are a staple of the early season.
In November, Tour pro Harris English hinted that the circuit could start after the Super Bowl. That makes sense, considering nobody can compete with the NFL, and Rolapp knows that as well as anyone, because he was previously the NFL’s chief media and business officer.
There’s speculation the Tour is finished with Hawaii. Sources recently told Golf Digest that the 2026 Sony could be the last, and the season-opening Sentry, which was canceled this year due to drought conditions, could also be axed in the near future, with it negatively impacting the Tour’s new for-profit model. Also, the American Express’s sponsorship deal expires in 2028. So the Tour might have multiple potential outs for its January events.
With the signature event model, certain tournaments’ fields suffer; for example, the Cognizant Classic, Valspar Championship and the Zurich Classic. And tournament directors, particularly those heading non-signature events, are frequently answering questions about the state of their events and what their future holds.
And this all doesn’t even cover what the format of the PGA Tour will be in the years to come. The current season-long FedEx Cup system is likely getting an overhaul, too.
“We’re going to design the best professional golf competitive model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners,” Rolapp said at last year’s Tour Championship. “It is aimed at a holistic relook of how we compete on the Tour. That is inclusive of regular season, postseason and off-season.”
More Golf from Sports Illustrated
- These New Irons Are Designed to Be Dialed in
- Brooks Koepka’s PGA Tour Punishment Isn’t Tough Enough
- LIV Golf Isn’t Done Making Changes in Hopes of Acceptance From Official World Golf Ranking
- LIV Golf CEO Holds No Ill Will Toward Brooks Koepka for His Exit
This article was originally published on www.si.com as From Scottie Scheffler to Slow Play, Five Storylines for the 2026 PGA Tour Season .
