After kicking off the 2026 season this past week with the Sony Open, the PGA Tour is hopping back to the mainland to kick off the California Swing with The American Express.
This multi-course event has found itself with a strong field in a make-or-break year for any of these perceived lower-tier events that might face the chopping block if the Tour moves to a shorter schedule.
The biggest star in the field this week is, of course, world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. This marks Scheffler's return to the AmEx, an event he usually plays but had to miss last season due to his ravioli injury.
The field boasts five of the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, setting us up for a star-studded weekend. The play around La Quinta usually requires players to go out and make a lot of birdies to have any sort of chance to win, as there hasn't been a winner with a score worse than 20-under here since 2007. With favorable conditions and benign weather expected this weekend, I think these guys will bring the courses to their knees.
The Sony Open rankings put in a good effort last week, with Ryan Gerard coming in solo second and giving winner Chris Gotterup a run for his money on Sunday. While we couldn't bring a winner home from Hawaii, maybe we can find one this week. Let's see what we can get out of the picks.
Honorable Mentions: Ryan Gerard, Rico Hoey, Alex Noren, Kristoffer Ventura, Sudarshan Yellamaraju
9. Kevin Yu
A large throughline of these rankings are going to be guys who can make a ton of birdies, and Kevin Yu knows how to fill the bottom of the cup.
The 27-year-old finished 2025 in the top 20 on Tour in birdie average per round, while also being a strong player off the tee. The big thing will be making sure the putter is timed up for a good week as well, but Yu will get plenty of chances to rack up the birdies.
8. Adrien Dumont de Chassart
A Saturday 73 killed the momentum Dumont de Chassart had after a strong opening 36 holes in Hawaii, but a top-25 in the first tournament of the season is always going to feel good.
The biggest thing that held the Belgian back last weekend was his putter, but he is returning to an event where he putted very well during his last appearance in 2024. With most of the game clicking, I can see Dumont de Chassart putting a run together this weekend.
7. Aldrich Potgieter
Beyond making birdies, hitting the ball a long way is going to help around La Quinta, and there's no one with speed and distance quite like Aldrich Potgieter. A favorite around these rankings, Potgieter is admittedly a boom-or-bust type pick for pretty much any event he plays in.
While he didn't play all that well here last season, that came down to a surprisingly poor week with his irons. If he pieces things together with his irons, then the South African will contend. Get Potgieter to the Presidents Cup this year.
6. Ben Griffin
After a Thursday 63, it seemed like Ben Griffin was going to make a run at Sony. However, back-to-back 71s stalled any sort of progress, leading to a rather pedestrian T19 finish.
Griffin is going to experience a much different kind of pressure this season at most events he plays in this year, as he'll enter as one of the favorites to win for the first considerable stretch in his career. I am holding my Ben Griffin stock as long as I can, and I think his return to an event where he finished in the top 10 each of the last two years is exactly what the doctor ordered.
5. Matt Fitzpatrick
The last time we saw Matt Fitzpatrick in tournament play was at the DP World Tour Championship in November, where he beat a field that included Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, and Ludvig Aberg, among others.
We've only seen Fitzpatrick in TGL play recently, where he's been one of the best players in the league to start the season. It's not just one aspect of Fitz's game that has improved; all four strokes gained categories have gotten back close to 2022 levels for him.
Last summer was a return to form for Fitzpatrick, and I think 2026 will be a full return to the top for the 2022 U.S. Open champion, starting this weekend.
4. Robert MacIntyre
This is going to be a momentum play, as MacIntyre was red-hot this past weekend to finish T4 after barely making the cut at Sony. The only other time Bobby Mac has played this event was in 2024, when his putting was at its absolute lowest point in his professional career.
Since then, his putter has become a major weapon, and it has led MacIntyre to a career-best sixth in the OWGR, already putting him in the upper echelon of modern Scottish golfers. It's felt like it's been coming for a couple of years now, but I think 2026 will be a big year for the lefty.
3. Michael Thorbjornsen
I don't know if you all have noticed, but the vibes in and around New England right now are immaculate, and there's a new New England golf star on the scene. Am I probably putting too much stock into one performance in TGL by Thor? Oh, absolutely. But his strong driving and putting game set up really well for this week.
Once he hit that one-year mark on Tour last summer, it seemed like the pro golf life started to slow down for Thorbjornsen, and the strong results really started to roll in for him. The Stanford graduate is poised for a breakout campaign, and a strong weekend this week will be a great start.
2. Harry Hall
Harry Hall is going to win a tournament this year, as he just makes too many birdies and putts too well to keep coming up short. The biggest thing to make note of from Hall's T6 at Sony is his strong driving performance, often the part of his game that lets him down and caps his finishes in the top-15 to top-25 range.
If he keeps up the strong driving performance, then all of a sudden, his ceiling truly raises to the top of the leaderboard. Just go out and make birdies this week, and Hall is going to be a threat.
1. Scottie Scheffler
Genuinely, it was never going to be anyone else.
It's one of the increasingly rare events that Scottie has not won yet in his career, but I could see this being another Byron Nelson-level performance.
I'll take the time to lay out my predictions for Scottie Scheffler this year: I think he wins six times on Tour this year, he adds another major that is not the U.S. Open, and he maintains another full calendar year as world No. 1.
It feels boring, and it's wild that a career year for 99.99 percent of all other professional golfers is a somewhat reasonable expectation for one guy, but that's the level we've reached with Scheffler.