THE QUEST FOR GLORY

Looking ahead into the 2026 Season at the PGA TOUR.

- WORDS JIM MCCABE

Should you be wondering what Scottie Scheffler and Rory Mcllroy could possibly do for an encore in 2026 to match their dominance of the past PGA TOUR season (nine combined wins included THE PLAYERS Championship and three majors). As much as we can't wait to see how the top two-ranked players in the world perform this year, there are countless other storylines that also deserve some attention.

Start with Tommy Fleetwood, who began 2025 ranked ninth in the world, but is currently No. 3 and it's no hyperbole to suggest he is the feelgood story on the threshold of 2026. Why? Because he's genuinely well-liked and his first-ever win on the PGA TOUR (and what came with that triumph at the TOUR Championship was the season-long FedExCup title) resonated with so many.

"I think it's easy for anybody to say that they are resilient, that they bounce back, that they have fight," Fleetwood told reporters in August when he shook off heartbreaking failures at The Travelers Championship and BMW Championship and won the TOUR Championship. "It's different when you actually have to prove it."

But if “proving it” helped Fleetwood climb to the top in 2025, it also did wonders for Mcllroy, who proved he could win at Augusta National, and for Scheffler, who proved he could utterly dominate, and for Justin Rose, who at 45 proved that he had plenty left in his tank.

All of which is a tidy segue into what envelopes all those new faces who'll be on the PGA TOUR in 2026 - they have earned a chance to prove they belong.