Vijay Singh is 63 years old and shot 69-69-69 to win the SAS Championship at Prestonwood. Ernie Els, one day past his 57th birthday, was the kid who couldn’t catch him.
IN THIS ISSUE
Vijay Singh Wins the SAS at 63
Chacarra Left LIV for This. Now He Leads Europe.
MyGolfSpy’s Test Winners Come With Fine Print
Srixon ZXi RKT: Buy the MAX, Not the LS
Finley Hosted Wake, Duke and State. You Can Play It Next.
Fred Couples Fell Off the Bubble in Cary
Hope Valley Is Getting Hogan’s Creek Back
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PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS . SAS CHAMPIONSHIP
Vijay Singh Wins the SAS at 63
Vijay Singh shot 69 three days running at Prestonwood to win the SAS Championship at 9 under, his first PGA Tour Champions win since 2023 and the seventh-oldest win in that tour’s history. Ernie Els finished two back with a bogey-free 69 the day after his 57th birthday, and Retief Goosen led after Friday’s 65. The 207 total is the highest winning 54-hole score on the senior tour this season. Prestonwood made them earn it.
DP WORLD TOUR . INDIA CHAMPIONSHIP
Chacarra Left LIV for This. Now He Leads Europe.
Eugenio Chacarra won the DP World India Championship by two, his third win of 2026, and passed Patrick Reed for the Race to Dubai lead. He played his way back to full status on an invite in India last year. Now he’s the hottest player in Europe, and it isn’t close: third in France, second in Spain, then 21 under at Delhi Golf Club on 4 a.m. wake-ups after weather delays.
Rory McIlroy shot 74, finished T42 and didn’t hit driver all week. He’s skipping Korea to save himself for Abu Dhabi and Dubai and a record-tying eighth Race to Dubai title. Chacarra told Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald he wants an automatic Ryder Cup spot, not a pick.
“Two of the best players in the world are coming for me now, and I know they are not going to make it easy.”
Donald, on the 18th green: “Top of the list. Keep doing it.”
PGA TOUR AMERICAS . FINAL STANDINGS
Ponder Tops the List That Gave Us Brennan
Watch the PGA Tour Americas points list. Michael Brennan finished No. 1 on it in 2025. This year it’s Thomas Ponder, 25, from Dothan, Alabama, Nick Dunlap’s old Alabama teammate. He won the Explore NB Open in July and never gave the top spot back. He and nine others get 2027 Korn Ferry cards, and seven of the 10 are rookies.
The best stories are below him. Joey Savoie closed with 67 to win the Dominican finale and played his last 45 holes bogey-free after a decade of arthritis pain. Corey Pereira won in Mexico six starts after his wife, Leah, died of sarcoma, and finished with the tour’s best scoring average, 67.57.
Keefer in 2024. Brennan in 2025. Ponder is next in line.
LPGA . SHANGHAI
Ruoning Yin Won Shanghai With a Four-Footer
Ruoning Yin made a four-foot birdie putt on 16 to break a back-nine tie with Hye-Jin Choi and win the LPGA’s Shanghai event. Choi led after 54 holes. Yin took it from her in China.
Four feet is a gimme on Wednesday. On 16 on Sunday, tied with the 54-hole leader, at your home country’s LPGA stop, it’s the hardest putt of the year. She holed it.
LOOKING AHEAD
Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course
The Tour goes to Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda, for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, October 22-25.
MyGolfSpy’s Test Winners Come With Fine Print
A $67 Costco wedge beat every wedge in MyGolfSpy’s 2026 testing, and MyGolfSpy is the one telling you it might be wrong for you. The Kirkland GEN 3 Forged has limited lofts and grinds, and you buy all three at once. The Bettinardi BB 6.0 was the best mallet at about $495, but the Ben Hogan BHM03 putted better from mid-range. The value pick: Tour Edge Hot Launch Max D irons, first in accuracy at $599.99 a set, if you can stand the iron-wood look.
Srixon ZXi RKT: Buy the MAX, Not the LS
At 95 mph, the lowest-spin Srixon carried the shortest. Cool Clubs’ robot test had the new RKT LS at 1,813 rpm and 226.1 yards of carry. The standard head carried 229.4. The MAX carried 230.1 with 2,530 rpm and a 12.2-degree launch. All three are $649.99. For a typical weekend swing, that’s a vote for the MAX. One catch: its dispersion ellipse was wider than the previous MAX despite a higher MOI, and the torque wrench and weight kit cost extra.
ALSO THIS WEEK
Garmin Approach S72 Gets a Speaker Garmin’s Approach S72 adds green reading, wrist-based swing metrics and a built-in speaker and mic, but green reading and putting analysis need a paid Garmin Golf subscription.
Steph Curry’s $5,000 Miuras Miura and Steph Curry are building 300 sets of irons at $5,000 each for Curry’s Underrated Golf Tour, and the 6-iron is stamped 30.
Finley Hosted Wake, Duke and State. You Can Play It Next.
Duke won the Ruth’s Chris Tar Heel Invitational at 11 under, 13 shots clear of Virginia Tech, with NC State third and No. 1 Wake Forest fourth. State’s Ellie Hildreth opened with a 66, and Virginia Tech’s Valentine Delon closed with one to take the individual title at 10 under. They played Finley at 6,173 yards and par 71, per Charlotte’s preview. Want to measure yourself against that? The CGA One-Day Four-Ball is at Finley on Oct. 25.
Fred Couples Fell Off the Bubble in Cary
Prestonwood was the last stop before the Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs, and the bubble moved Sunday. Fred Couples came in 73rd and left 75th, outside the top 72 who advance. Heath Slocum and Tom Pernice Jr. dropped out too, while Mathew Goggin jumped from 74th to 69th. Tag Ridings tied for third and grabbed the last Sprint to St. Louis spot, so he plays Zach Johnson and Steven Alker for $200,000, winner-take-all, at this week’s Stifel Charity Classic.
Hope Valley Is Getting Hogan’s Creek Back
Kris Spence starts a full restoration of Hope Valley Country Club in January, working off Donald Ross’s original 1926 drawings. The greens get rebuilt lower with more contour in TifEagle, fairways go to Zeon Zoysia, and the bunker count climbs from 55 to 59, cross bunkers included. The best part: Spence is restoring the creek on No. 11, the hole Ben Hogan said was “ruined” when it got filled in. It’s private, it reopens mid-to-late fall 2027, and groundbreaking is New Year’s Day, so if you know a member, ask now.
ALSO THIS WEEK
26 Years at Prestonwood The SAS Championship has been at Prestonwood every year since 2001, and this was the 26th playing.
Carson Looney Wins in Georgia Duke’s Carson Looney closed with an even-par 72 to win the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate by one, after a 65 that included an eagle on a 403-yard par 4.
Mebane’s Emily Mathews Finished Top 10 Mebane’s Emily Mathews opened with a 68 and tied for seventh for Virginia Tech at Finley, playing a home-state course in front of the home-state crowd.
ON THE TEE SHEET
Oct 24-25: North Carolina Regional Tournament 2, Foxfire Golf & Resort, Foxfire Village, NC
Oct 25: CGA One-Day Four-Ball, Finley GC, Chapel Hill, NC
Oct 26: Sequence Golf Tournament benefiting Ronald McDonald House Triangle, Lonnie Poole Golf Course, Raleigh, NC
Oct 27: Tournament at UNC Finley Golf Course, UNC Finley Golf Course, Chapel Hill, NC
Oct 30: Riverside Ranch Charity Tournament, Neuse Country Club, Clayton, NC
Nov 1: CGA Women Four-Ball Play Day, Pinewild CC (Holly), Pinehurst, NC
Nov 2: CGA Women Four-Ball Play Day, Southern Pines GC, Southern Pines, NC
Nov 6: CGA One-Day Individual, Tanglewood (Championship), Clemmons, NC
TWO WAYS TO KEEP THIS GOING
Show up to a new course already knowing the move.
The next time a buddy picks a Triangle course you have never played, you will know which tees to play, where the trouble is, and what the locals actually pay before you leave the parking lot. That is the Triangle Golf Guide: 23 courses deep, plus the curated sim spots and the membership math worth knowing. Less than a range bucket, at $5.99.
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That's your read this week.
Tour intel, gear picks, and local course intel every Tuesday.