Michael Brennan birdied the 18th hole at the Wyndham Championship to close with a 6- 64 and reach the FedEx Cup playoffs. He finished -22 for the championship. His mother, Shannon embraced him on the green exclaiming “you are going to the Masters!”
The 24-year-old Virginia native who played his golf at Wake Forest had just won his second PGA Tour victory and $1.53 million and qualified for the first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs, but he did not know he had qualified to play in the 2027 Masters, the pinnacle of golf’s majors until his mother gave him the news-they both cried with joy. The Masters is the Masters after all.
Brennan was in contention at the 3M Open and Rocket Classic in recent weeks but failed to close on Sunday. He clearly figured out how to close on Sunday at the Wyndham Championship.
Brennan came into the final tournament of the regular season at No. 105 in the FedEx Cup standings (only the top 70 players advance), with the win on Sunday he moves up to number 47.
The FedEx Cup playoffs start Thursday with the FedEx St. Jude Championship at the TPC Southwind in Memphis, Tennessee.
The FedEx Cup Playoffs feature a three-event progressive elimination structure: the FedEx St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind in Memphis (top 70 players), the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis (top 50 players), and the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta (top 30 players).
At the conclusion of the 2026 PGA Tour regular season following the Wyndham Championship, Scottie Scheffler leads the FedEx Cup standings. He is followed in the top ten by Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Chris Gotterup, Collin Morikawa, Si Woo Kim, Sam Burns, Tommy Fleetwood, and Ludvig Åberg.
The 2026 FedEx Cup Playoffs run from August 13 to August 30 across three events. TV and linear coverage is split across Golf Channel, NBC, and ESPN, with extensive streaming on ESPN+.
The PGA Tour has crowned eight first-time winners so far during the 2026 season, highlighted by breakthrough performances from rising rookies and veteran players earning their maiden titles.
Jackson Koivun (21-years-old), who left Auburn in June and won the 3M Open in only his third start on the PGA Tour hung on to the 70th and final spot to qualify for the FedEx Cup.
Asterisk Talley won the 126th U.S. Women’s Amateur at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Northeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The 17-year-old from Chowchilla, California in the San Joaquin valley in central California, capped her junior golf career with her biggest championship yet, defeating Japan’s Anna Iwanaga 8 and 6 in the 36-hole final to earn the Robert Cox Trophy. The victory came just two years after Talley finished as the tournament’s runner-up.
Talley needed just 108 holes to navigate six rounds of match play, five short of the tournament record for this United States Golf Association championship. She also became the first runner-up to return and win the U.S. Women’s Amateur since Amanda Blumenherst in 2008.
The victory further cemented Talley’s status as the top-ranked female junior golfer in the world. The Stanford-committed star has also captured major junior titles at the Rolex Girls Junior Championship, Junior PGA Championship, Annika Invitational and Girls’ Junior Invitational at Sage Valley. She also won the 2024 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball.
“This pretty much completes my amateur career,” Talley said in a USGA release. “The U.S. Women’s Amateur is one of the biggest events to ever win, so I think this is going to be the top of my list from now on.”
Few venues in America – if not the world – have the championship pedigree of Merion Golf Club. The Ardmore, Pa., club is set to host its 20th USGA championship and seventh U.S. Amateur this week as 312 competitors will descend upon Philadelphia’s Main Line (a suburb Northwest of Philadelphia) with the goal of hoisting the Havemeyer Trophy next Sunday.
From Ben Hogan’s memorable 1-iron approach to the 72nd hole that led to his playoff triumph in the 1950 U.S. Open just 18 months after a near-fatal automobile accident to Bob Jones completing what was then golf’s Grand Slam in 1930 – the U.S. and British Opens and the U.S. and British Amateurs – to its famed wicker-basket flagsticks, history flows from Merion Golf Club.
One more chapter will be added to those storied moments this week.
Mason Howell, the 19-year-old Georgian who made a remarkable run a year ago at The Olympic Club as the No. 63 seed, returns to defend, looking to become the first back-to-back winner since Tiger Woods claimed an unprecedented three in a row from 1994-96. He has committed to play for the Georgia Bulldogs.
He’ll have plenty of company. Forty-seven of the top 50 players in the current World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR® are entered, including a strong mix of American and international players from throughout the globe. Besides the United States, 35 countries are represented, providing a glimpse of how far-reaching the game has become.
Television coverage begins Thursday, August 13 from 3 – 6 pm on Peacock.
Enjoy your golf.
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