The PGA Tour headed southeast to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, concluding the action-packed “West Coast Swing” to kick off the iconic Florida stretch of the 2026 Tour season. Several golf stars, including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Min Woo Lee and last week’s Genesis Invitational champion Jacob Bridgeman, were among some of the top golfers who opted out of the Florida opener.
Joe Highsmith, winner of the 2025 Cognizant Classic, narrowly secured a weekend slot by making the cut after shooting even par through the weekday rounds. This mirrored last year’s run, where he also made the cut by a single stroke before posting back-to-back 64s to claim his first and only PGA Tour victory.
However, that was certainly not the case this year. Highsmith’s third round was extremely disappointing, as he shot a five-over round with a double bogey on the par-four second followed by three consecutive bogeys to close out the front nine. He ultimately finished the 2026 Classic in 67th place after shooting one over on Championship Sunday.
American Austin Smotherman and Ireland’s Shane Lowry shared the lead (-13) after 54 holes at The PGA National Resort, The Champion Course. Lowry finished his Saturday round bogey free, shooting an eight-under. After the round, he joked with reporters, claiming he was likely in the lead only because of the absence of world number one Scottie Scheffler.
Heading into the 16th hole of Sunday’s round, Lowry held a comfortable three-stroke lead over Nico Echavarria. It only went downhill from there for the three-time PGA Tour winner, who hasn’t won a singles tournament since September 2022 at the BMW PGA Championship — a Rolex Series event on the DP World Tour.
Lowry’s final three holes on Championship Sunday were disastrous after two errant tee shots found the water on the par-four 16th and par-three 17th. Despite Lowry finishing the back nine even par, Echavarria took full advantage of Lowry’s late-round breakdown, storming past him in epic fashion with an electrifying birdie on 17 that was followed by a loud roar from the crowd.
After several mediocre tournament performances, Echavarria finally won his first tournament of the 2026 Tour. He shot five-under-par on Sunday and 17-under-par for the entire tournament to close out Taylor Moore and Shane Lowry in a close ending finish, taking home the purse of $1.73 million along with 500 FedEx Cup points.