It has arguably never been a better time to be a young, elite professional golfer.
The PGA Tour has expanded pathways to the tour. The best college players can step right onto the tour through PGA Tour U, the DP World Tour promotes its top performers each year, and the Korn Ferry Tour reliably churns out guys ready to compete. And LIV Golf has acknowledged a changing strategy, focused on signing young talent over post-prime names.
What that means for you, the golf viewer, is a greater likelihood someone will come across your TV screen in 2026 that you’ve A) never heard of, B) want to learn more about, and C) wins a tournament that matters. Who could they be? The Athletic’s golf desk has identified three possibilities.
Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
The track record for DP World Tour grads joining the PGA Tour is not great, so far — Robert MacIntyre is a clear success story from the first batch, but of last season’s nine rookies, only two kept full PGA Tour status for 2026.
There’s a variety of factors at play here, but MacIntyre’s acclimation to the largely North American circuit is a reminder that talent always travels. And Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen is a real deal talent.
The 26-year-old Dane won the final big deal event of the 2025 season, the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne. He beat Cam Smith and Si Woo Kim with some sensational iron play down the stretch, and multiple clutch putts. The latter is a bit of an anomaly — Neergaard-Petersen has lost strokes gained putting over the last six months, per DataGolf — but that’s outweighed by considerable distance (and accuracy) off the tee, and a very good approach game. Guess what type of players the PGA Tour setups often favors?
You could accuse me of over-indexing his only win in 2025, and there’s a considerable acclimation period coming for a guy who was playing on the Challenge Tour in 2024, but look at past Australian Open winners. They’re almost always premier players, and usually homegrown. Beating an Australian, Smith, on the 72nd hole at a world-class golf course is actually a pretty big deal, and sets Neergaard-Petersen up for a big 2026, including his first Masters. — Hugh Kellenberger
Neal Shipley has already become a recognizable face to golf fans. Now he’ll be a PGA Tour rookie. (Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)
Neal Shipley
Neal Shipley will break out as the younger, fresher archetype of the “everyman” golfer on the PGA Tour this year. With Joel Dahmen holding only PGA Tour conditional status and Harry Higgs losing his card, Shipley will have the perfect opportunity to fill this gap — and he’ll do it with a few viral moments and a PGA Tour win this season.
The golf world was first introduced to Shipley when he qualified for the 2024 Masters via the U.S. Amateur. Shipley somehow parlayed a runner-up finish at the most prestigious amateur event in the country into a Sunday tee time at Augusta National with Tiger Woods. Shipley ended up winning low-amateur honors, sitting next to Scottie Scheffler in Butler Cabin. He was so nervous during the ceremony that he couldn’t stop looking at Jim Nantz’s teleprompter, and the ensuing screenshots of his side-eye made for some instant classic memes.
But Shipley is more than a relatable personality.
He’s had some highly impressive runs in tournaments. The Pittsburgh native finished fourth on the 2025 Korn Ferry Tour standings even though he missed 13 of 24 cuts. When Shipley plays well, he plays really well. He had two wins, two third-place finishes, five top-5s and eight top-10s this season on the feeder tour. In the late summer, he placed in the top 10 in five consecutive weeks, promptly locking up his PGA Tour card for the following season. Shipley has some of the best experience of the 20-man Korn Ferry Tour graduating class. He’s already made the cut in two major championships — T53 and T26 at the 2024 Masters and U.S. Open, respectively — and he has three top-20 finishes in the PGA Tour events that he’s already played in via sponsor exemption. — Gabby Herzig
Could Tom McKibbin break out in a way we have not seen other LIV golfers do? (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
Tom McKibbin
Let’s break down the LIV “success” archetypes.
There are the established stars proving their greatness, like Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm. The golfers who play like stars in LIV events, who we understand to be good players but haven’t stepped up in the majors, names like Joaquin Niemann or even Talor Gooch. But what LIV hasn’t quite had? A new name growing into a star and proving it.
The 22-year-old Northern Irishman Tom McKibbin is a great candidate. He held his own on the DP World Tour at 20 and 21, then went to LIV last year and showed promising signs. I think he’ll take a big step toward becoming a top-20 golfer in the world. He’ll contend in at least one major, which will shine more of a light on a young player from the same town as Rory McIlroy, and his stage will rise. He’ll then start winning on LIV, and by year’s end, we’ll talk about him similarly to how we talk about someone like Niemann. McKibbin is a great driver of the golf ball with solid distance and elite accuracy. He’s got an awesome short game, and his ball striking took a big step forward in 2025. Say what you will about LIV (and it’s all fair), but McKibbin, David Puig and Josele Ballester are all real candidates to become studs. — Brody Miller