After a dominant campaign on PGA Tour Americas, Michael Brennan earned a promotion to the PGA Tour’s top developmental circuit. But he can skip the Korn Ferry Tour and head straight to the PGA Tour, just as his caddie predicted he would, after winning the Bank of Utah Championship on Sunday by four strokes over Rico Hoey.
“He told me ever since we played a great year, we’re not going to the Korn Ferry Tour,” Brennan said of his caddie, Jeff Kirkpatrick. “I can’t believe he’s right.”
Brennan, 23, shot a final-round 5-under 66 at Black Desert Resort Golf Course in Ivins, Utah, in his third PGA Tour start and first as a professional. In doing so, he became the seventh player since 1970 to win his first Tour title within his first three starts. Brennan won three times on PGA Tour Americas this season and finished No. 1 in the Fortinet Cup standings, the PGA Tour Americas season-long race, which is similar to the FedEx Cup. That earned him full- exempt status on the Korn Ferry Tour next season. In his six previous starts on the PGA Tour Americas, Brennan had won three times, registered five top-5 finishes and a score to par of 105 under.
“It’s given me so much great experience playing on the Americas Tour this year and having some success,” Brennan said.
Brennan initially played his way onto the developmental circuit by finishing 12th in the 2024 PGA Tour University Rankings during his time at Wake Forest, where he won eight individual titles, including the ACC Championship in back to back years.
As noted by Monday Q Info’s Ryan French, Brennan was scheduled this week to do a sponsor event in Canada at a conference for 1,500 people, where he was going to hit balls into a simulator and provide lessons and do a closest to the pin competition, but his agent landed him a sponsor invite. Brennan, who hadn’t played on the PGA Tour since the 2023 U.S. Open, opened with rounds of 67-65-64 and entered the final round with a two-stroke advantage. He said he experienced more nerves while eating breakfast on Sunday than he did during the round but whenever his mind wandered he’d think about River Creek Golf Club in Leesburg, Virginia, the course where he learned the game.
“It’s a very kind of calming and peaceful place to me. So when I try to imagine I’m hitting shots, just a 7-iron I would hit at River Creek, makes me feel a little bit better out on the golf course,” he said.
Funny that he mentioned a 7-iron as that was the club his father recalled buying his son as a young golfer. Brennan, his father noted, loved that club so much he slept with it for a week. “I mean, who sleeps with his 7-iron?” Brennan’s father asked rhetorically.
In the final round, Brennan racked up five birdies on the front nine to open up a five-stroke lead. He bogeyed No. 10 and when Hoey answered with birdie the lead was trimmed to three strokes. But Brennan crushed a 418-yard drive at No. 12, wedged to 3 feet and, after tapping in the birdie, Hoey never got closer. Brennan added another birdie at No. 14 to extend his lead again and despite a bogey on the final hole, he coasted to victory with a 72-hole total of 22-under 262.
“Winning a tournament is one of the better feelings in the world,” Brennan said.
He would know. He has at least one victory in the last three months. After he won for the third time on PGA Tour Americas and clinched his promotion to Triple A, the Tour filmed a playful video of his fellow pros saying good riddance. “He’s a Petri dish baby. He’s built like an absolute athletic specimen and he hits the ball like one,” said Dillon Stewart, a winner on PGA Tour Americas this season. David Ford, who competed against Brennan in the ACC at North Carolina and played a practice round with Brennan earlier in the week, said of his friend, who topped the field in Strokes Gained: Off the tee and ranked second in driving distance, “He’s hitting it straight so he’s ripping driver everywhere. When he gets the putter going he’s going to be hard to beat any week. To see him have success is not a surprise to me.”
Golf Channel analyst Johnson Wagner, who broadcast the tournament on TV, prefaced that he didn’t want to exaggerate Brennan’s exploits this week and potential but then raved, “this is a future star. He’s going to play on Ryder Cup teams…Big things ahead for this man.”
Hoey closed in 67 to finish second, tying his best finish of his career, and locked up his Tour card for next season. Six golfers, including defending champion Matt McCarty, finished tied for third. Max Homa, who split with his swing coach recently, and 2026 U.S. Presidents Cup captain Brandt Snedeker recorded top-10 finishes too.
But the glory this week belonged to Brennan, who is exempt through 2027 on the PGA Tour, making a childhood dream come true.
“I know my parents showed me things I wrote in kindergarten what my dream job is. It was always to play professional golf and to do so on the highest level,” he said.
