The first stretch of the PGA Tour season is officially in the books. Hawaii and the West Coast Swing are in the rearview mirror, and now we shift our focus to Florida, Texas, and ultimately the final boss, the crown jewel of Augusta, Georgia.
You know it’s a special time of year when the first Masters commercial hits your TV screen. Even better? Hearing Jim Nantz sign off the final CBS broadcast at Riviera with, “The next time we’ll see you is in Augusta, Georgia.” Instant chills.
The Masters is still about 45 days away, though, and there are some massive tournaments ahead before we get there. This week, however, is not one of them.
While the Cognizant Classic may feel more like PGA Tour Lite (patent pending*) there are still some intriguing, open-ended storylines worth following. Events like this can give us valuable insight into emerging players, shifting form, and potential breakout candidates as we head deeper into the season.
Without further ado…
1. Can Brooks Koepka Putt
The honeymoon phase of Brooks Koepka being back on the PGA Tour is officially over for me. I’m still ecstatic that he’s back, but the free pass of having zero expectations is gone. At this point, better results need to follow. And there won’t be any if the putting performances we saw at the Farmers Insurance Open and Waste Management continue. For context, he lost 2.41 strokes putting at the Farmers and 1.68 at WM. That’s simply not sustainable.
Thursday will mark two weeks since we last saw him, so it’ll be interesting to see whether he’s found any answers with the putter during that time. At WM, he moved away from his traditional Scotty Cameron blade and opted for a TaylorMade Spider mallet. Which one shows up in the bag this week? Or does he go in a completely different direction?
I understand you can’t just snap your fingers and fix a broken part of your game. It’s difficult to rediscover something that feels lost. Still, I’ll be disappointed if Koepka’s putting looks as poor at the Cognizant as it did in his last two starts. I’m not even asking for good, my bar is low. If he loses more than 0.5 strokes putting, I’ll be frustrated. If he gains even the slightest amount, I’ll take it as a very positive sign.
Ultimately, this week feels like a litmus test for where his game truly stands as we move deeper into the season and closer to the events every player circles on the calendar. The version of Koepka we saw at WM and the Farmers Will struggle to make cuts at the majors, and for my sake as a viewer, I’d love for that statement to look ridiculous after this week. In a weaker field where he is clearly the biggest name, a missed cut would be extremely concerning. Realistically, anything worse than a T30 would feel like a letdown.
2. Where is Nick Dunlap’s game at, specifically the driver?
We haven’t seen Nick Dunlap since his withdrawal from The American Express. It’s been over a month now. In his two starts to begin the season, the driver issues that plagued him throughout 2025 were still very much present. That club derailed large stretches of his season last year, and unfortunately it’s played the same role to start 2026.
It’s tough to watch. Some of the misses at The American Express were so far offline that it’s nearly impossible to compete at the professional level dealing with that kind of dispersion.
I’m not expecting everything to be magically fixed, but the key question is whether the time away allowed him to find something. Whether that’s more confidence off the tee or simply a way to reduce the severity of the big misses. Even marginal improvement with the driver would make a massive difference.
We know the talent is there. He won twice in his rookie season at just 20 years old, including once as an amateur. That ceiling doesn’t just disappear. I’m hoping we start to see signs of it again soon, because he’s one of the most exciting young players to watch when things are clicking.
3. Will Michael Thorbjornsen Bounce Back?
I’ve documented plenty how high I am on Thor moving forward, he has serious big-game potential.
That said, his last outing at Pebble Beach, which followed his near victory at the Waste Management, went very poorly. He finished T78 in an 80-player no-cut field and looked completely out of sync all week, losing strokes in every major category. The damage largely came from a brutal stretch during the final round. On the par-3 17th, he made triple bogey after five-putting, and then followed it up with a quadruple bogey 9 on the par-5 18th. Seven over par in two holes, oof.
But if you remove Pebble from the equation and zoom out, even going back to the fall, something is clearly brewing. He’s trending toward something big. In other words, a win feels close.
Interestingly, during his early-season struggles last year, the Cognizant Classic was one of the few events where he wasn’t terrible. He finished T39 and gained strokes in every category except putting.
So is a bounce-back week loading? My answer is yes, I have zero doubts. But I’ll let him go out and prove it to everyone else who doesn’t trust me.
4. Can any New(ish) Young Guns show out?
David Ford, Blades Brown, Karl Vilips, Luke Clanton, , Hojgaards x2, Thorbjornsen, Dunlap and anyone else I missed I’m talking to you
I’d love to see the guys listed above become regulars on Sunday leaderboards and mainstays in the all important PGA Tour Live featured groups. The Tour could really use some new, young, fresh blood and this week presents a great opportunity for that to happen. In a weaker field, there’s real space for emerging players to showcase their talent and compete for a win.
After back-to-back Signature Events, we haven’t seen many of these players for a few weeks. Some were trending up when we last saw them, while others still looked a bit lost. I’m especially interested to see how they perform in a field that lacks the usual star power at the top.
One player I’m particularly intrigued by is Luke Clanton. As an amateur, it felt like he was a legitimate threat to win almost every time he teed it up on the PGA Tour. Since turning pro, though, it seems like he’s had a better chance of missing the cut than contending for a top-10 finish.
This course should feel familiar to him it’s where he secured his PGA Tour card last year and where he grew up playing a lot in. Maybe some of that positive energy and comfort can help him rediscover the dominant form we saw during his amateur run.
Blades Brown is another fascinating case this week. He’s playing on a sponsor exemption and is still primarily a Korn Ferry Tour member. Last time out at The American Express, he was in the final group on Sunday and had a real chance to win at the start of the final round.
Will he replicate that success this week? I wouldn’t necessarily bank on it, he’s still very young, and contending consistently on the PGA Tour is incredibly difficult. But maybe, just maybe. My expectations aren’t sky-high, but the upside is undeniable.
Anyways I’m actually super stoked for this week and that’s fully knowing the golf channel coverage will be a painful commercial filled slugfest to sit through and watch. Also no offence to the guys who’ve been on tour for a while and are seasoned veterans but I’m really rooting for a young guy to win this week. Like I said earlier we need some new exciting fresh blood on the tour to find success here.
