After their visit to Japan for the Baycurrent Classic, formerly the Zozo Championship, won by Xander Schauffele, the PGA Tour heads back to the United States to start preparing for the countdown to the 2025 season. From this Thursday, the Black Desert Resort Golf Course will host the Bank of Utah Championship, a tournament offering six million dollars in prizes. And from there, only three more events remain, with much at stake, before the curtain falls.
Starting with the less tense area, five of the top 50 players in the world golf rankings will be in Utah this week: Alex Noren (17th in the OWGR), Maverick McNealy (19th), Kurt Kitayama (36th), Billy Horschel (38th), and Jason Day (42nd). One of them, McNealy, is the only player in the field who competed last August in the TOUR Championship, the grand finale of the FedEx Cup, which was won by the Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, who triumphed last week on the DP World Tour in India.
Seven of the players registered for this Bank of Utah Championship have won a PGA Tour tournament this season: Steven Fisk (Sanderson Farms), Ryan Gerard (Barracuda), Joe Highsmith (Cognizant Classic), Kurt Kitayama (3M Open), William Mouw (ISCO), Aldrich Potgieter (Rocket Classic), and Karl Vilips (Puerto Rico Open). All of them have secured their card for the next season, something several participants aspire to seal this week.
In particular, the 14 who are closest to the ‘hot’ zone of the rankings who have decided to play this tournament. The top 100 in the FedEx after the seven-tournament fall calendar will secure full playing rights for 2026. In Utah, Rico Hoey (91st in the FedEx), Matt Wallace (93rd), Beau Hossler (95th), Patrick Fishburn (98th), David Lipsky (99th), Isaiah Salinda (101st), Joel Dahmen (103rd), Max McGreevy (104th), Victor Perez (105th), Sam Ryder (106th), Andrew Putnam (107th), Lanto Griffin (108th), Lee Hodges (109th), Taylor Moore (110th) will participate. Also in this battle is Alex Noren (ranked 111th), a player closely watched on the DP World Tour, as if he breaks into the top 100, it will free up another PGA Tour card through the Race to Dubai.
A good result this week, with just three more tournaments ahead to close the season (World Wide Technology Championship in Mexico, Butterfield Bermuda Championship in Bermuda, and The RSM Classic in Georgia), would practically secure the card. Something they would guarantee in case of victory, as the tournament champion, in addition to a direct passport to The Sentry (if it is played), the THE PLAYERS Championship, and the PGA Championship, will secure playing rights in 2026 (and a cheque of just over a million dollars).
Attention will also be on the battle for positions 51st to 60th in the FedEx (from 50 upwards are fixed after the TOUR Championship) as the 10 players occupying these spots once this autumn calendar is completed will secure their place in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational, the first two designated events of 2026, with elevated prize funds and a greater bounty of points at stake, something that greatly helps in securing the card for the following year.
Regarding ties with Utah, the tournament venue from Thursday to Sunday, notable invitations include Kihei Akina, a freshman at BYU from Alpine, who missed the cut in his tournament debut last year; Connor Howe, from Ogden, who began his college career at Weber State University before transferring to the University of Utah, participating for the first time in the PGA Tour since turning professional in 2023; David Liechty, a freshman at Utah Tech University in St. George, from Layton; and Preston Summerhays, two-time Utah amateur champion (2018, 2019), born in Farmington, and ranked seventh in the PGA Tour University Class of 2025.
In the absence of Spaniards, we will enjoy the spectacular par 72 of over 7,400 yards, in a simply stunning desert setting, with Europeans like Matt Wallace, Alex Noren, Jesper Svensson, Thorbjorn Olesen, or Henrik Norlander, as well as the aforementioned Victor Perez, immersed in that battle for the top 100 positions in the circuit standings that allow them to maintain the same status next season.
