The 2026 PGA Tour regular season ended last Sunday with Scottie Scheffler winning the Tour Championship in clinical fashion. A year that saw Scheffler come up just short numerous times came to a close with him winning two of the three playoff events and likely cementing himself as the PGA Tour Player of the Year.
The 2026 season had some very clear winners. Rory McIlroy repeated at Augusta, Wyndham Clark returned to prominence with a U.S. Open win and two other trophies, Chris Gotterup won three times, Cameron Young won twice and Matt Fitzpatrick took home three titles including a team win with his brother Alex.
Scheffler, McIlroy and others dominated the headlines, but success on the PGA Tour isn’t binary for everyone.
While we will spend the offseason continuing to praise the World No. 1 and relive McIlroy’s Augusta repeat, early September is a good time to look at others who won in 2026 without lifting a trophy this season.
Ryan Gerard
The most obvious winner of the non-winners is Gerard, who had three runner-up finishes and a third place at the Tour Championship in 2026. Gerard opened the season with back-to-back runner-ups at the Sony and the American Express. He lost in a playoff to J.T. Poston at the Memorial and then carded top-10s at the Open and Rocket Classic before a third at East Lake.
“I’ll be pretty proud of it. I think I played some really solid golf over the course of the year,” Gerard said after his finish at the Tour Championship. “Frustrated with some of the results, but I think I’m still playing a lot this fall.”
Gerard’s goal was to make the Presidents Cup. While he was left off the roster by captain Brandt Snedeker, he elevated his game in 2026 and will be even more motivated in 2027 to show that he belongs in the conversation as one of the ascending American talents.
“We’re getting ready to grind,” Gerard said. “Season’s not over for me. Frustrated with some of the results — a lot of positives, but still work left to do.”
Sam Burns
It would be easy to look at Sam Burns’ season as one where he let the big one get away. Burns played in the final group on Saturday at the Masters en route to a T7 finish. He then finished T4 at the Memorial before falling a few inches short of sending the U.S. Open to a playoff. He flushed that U.S. Open near-miss by taking the 54-hole lead at the Open, only to finish third as Ryan Fox won the Claret Jug.
It’s tough to win in pro golf. But before this season, Burns had just two career major top-10s and zero top-five finishes. He showed he’s a legitimate major threat and elevated himself to a different tier in the pro golf hierarchy.
“I think the more you put yourself in this position, the better,” Burns said after his third place at the Open.
Min Woo Lee
The Australian won in 2025, but his game took a leap in 2026 without the title to show for it.
After winning the Texas Children’s Houston Open last year, Lee failed to record another top 10 until the Bay Current Classic in November. He finished 57th in the FedEx Cup and missed the BMW. He was an overall much better player in 2026.
Lee has two runner-up finishes, a third- and a fourth-place finish in 2026 en route to making his Tour Championship debut.
In 2025, Lee ranked 99th in Strokes Gained: Total (0.086), 120th in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green (-0.075), 105th in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (0.009) and 166th in Strokes Gained: Approach (-0.430). He used his length to bludgeon courses and leaned on his short game when his unreliable driver (159th in driving accuracy percentage) put him in bad spots. He lacked an off-speed pitch to contend with when he was spraying it off the tee, and his poor approach play severely hampered his ability to take advantage of his length when the driver wasn’t being erratic.
It was a different story in 2026. Lee finished the season ranked 25th in SG: Total (0.729), 24th in SG: Tee to Green (0.653), 26th in SG: Off the Tee (0.360) and 82nd in SG: Approach (0.051).
In his title defense in Houston, Lee mentioned that he had throttled back his speed to be more accurate and wanted to focus on being able to contend when he didn’t have his best.
“That’s the thing that I wanted to get better at. I think the best players in the world do that really good, they don’t have their A game, but they somehow make a score. I still have bad rounds, but this year’s been really good,” Lee said.
Lee’s biggest focus was to improve his iron play in order to contend in Signature Events and major championships. In 2025, Lee recorded just two top-20 finishes in the PGA Tour’s big events while finishing outside the top 40 or missing the cut in the rest.
“Just consistent play,” Lee said of his 2026 focus. “I mean, it was something with my coach and my team that I needed to do with my approach play especially. I thought that I was good enough to be out here and play, but the Signature Events beat me up last year. I needed to get a lot better and a lot more stable. A lot stronger, too. Yeah, it was just a good period of time after the fall we really had to do something about my game. … We’re trying to play good in the Signature Events and the big events. So yeah, it was all part of the plan, which is nice, and coming along good.”
In 2026, Lee finished runner-up at Pebble Beach, T6 at the API, second at the Scottish Open and T4 at East Lake. He also recorded a top 20 at the PGA Championship. He still has work to do, but 2026 was a big leap for Min Woo Lee.
Adam Scott
One year after finishing 90th in the FedEx Cup with zero top- 10s, the 46-year-old Scott looked more like the Adam Scott we’ve become accustomed to seeing over the past two decades.
He finished fourth at the Genesis Invitational, posted a T4 at the Cadillac and a T9 at the Open Championship to easily make his way back to East Lake. In Atlanta, Scott put himself in position on Sunday to win his first Tour Championship in 20 years. He struggled in the final round but still finished T11 and will automatically be in all of the Signature Events in 2027 without needing a sponsor’s invite.
Scott played in his 100th consecutive major at the U.S. Open and continues to love the grind of playing professional golf, even if it has gotten more difficult than it was when he was one of golf’s young stars.
“Even the standard I play at is, I think, I’m a better golfer,” Scott said at the Tour Championship. “What I’m trying to say is putting it all together every week, that seems to be the biggest challenge for me. I work on my long game and I hit it great, but my short game suffers a bit. Finding the time to always keep bringing everything up to that top level is my biggest challenge.”
Scott hasn’t won since the 2020 Genesis Invitational but continues to put himself in the mix, even as the game gets younger and deeper.
“I’d love to get back and win a tournament. Any tournament would do,” Scott said in Atlanta.
That didn’t come in 2026, but Scott will again be a fixture at golf’s marquee events in 2027, with the game to take home titles when all parts of his game cooperate.
Eric Cole
The 38-year-old journeyman is still looking for his first PGA Tour win but he finished his season on the right side of a key bubble.
By finishing 48th in the FedEx Cup and making it to the BMW, Cole will be in all of the Signature Events in 2027. That’s even more important as we look toward the 2028 season and the PGA Tour’s two-tiered system. With that on the horizon, the 2027 Signature Events will provide an inside track toward making the cutoff for the Championship Series in 2028. Thanks to a playoff loss at the Charles Schwab, a top 10 at the Memorial and a T14-T6-T6 stretch across the Valero, Zurich and Myrtle Beach Classic, Cole will have a tee time at the big-money, big-point events, which gives him a leg up on making the cutoff for Track A in 2028.
