The third $4 million ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic features a mixture of experienced professionals and young upstarts, and players with extensive resumes and others still trying to build them.
The PGA Tour event is being played simultaneously with the $20 million Truist Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., which features approximately 80 of the top golfers on tour.
Yet there are several notable players in the field this week at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club.
Here are 10 players to watch beginning with Thursday’s opening round.
Brooks Koepka
The five-time major champion headlines the field. He has won three PGA Championships in 2018, 2019 and 2023, and two U.S. Opens in 2017 and 2018.
After spending 3 1/2 years on LIV Golf, Koepka, 35, rejoined the PGA Tour this year through a new Returning Member Program instituted by the PGA Tour primarily to allow LIV golfers to return.
He will use the tournament as a tune-up to next week’s PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania.
Koepka has won a total of nine PGA Tour events, and the former No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking is currently ranked 63rd in 2026 FedExCup points on tour and 126th in the OWGR.
Thus far this season, Koepka has made five cuts in eight PGA Tour starts with four top-20 finishes, highlighted by a tie for ninth at the Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches and a tie for 12th at The Masters Tournament. He also tied for 13th at The Players Championship and tied for 18th at the Valspar Championship. He is not eligible through his return program to accept sponsor exemptions into signature events like the Truist.
Any field Koepka plays in this year is being expanded to avoid him taking the place of another player with PGA Tour status, so the field was expanded from 120 to 123 players, allowing alternates James Hahn and Troy Merrit to make the field in order to have full threesomes in the first and second rounds.
Koepka is one of two major champions in the field, along with 2016 Masters winner Danny Willett. Former U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson withdrew when he was granted a sponsor exemption for the Truist Championship.
Koepka is paired with Aaron Rai and Davis Thompson for the first two rounds and is scheduled to go off the first tee at 7:26 a.m. Thursday and the 10th tee at 12:16 p.m. Friday. All of the tee times are available on the PGA Tour website.
Blades Brown
The 18-year-old from Nashville returns to Myrtle Beach for the third time as a sponsor exemption after tying for 26th as a 16-year-old amateur in 2024 and tying for 37th in 2025 in his first professional season.
Brown has three top-three finishes this year between the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour. He finished third in the dual-field Puerto Rico Open in early March and has four top-40 finishes in five PGA Tour starts in 2026, and has second- and third-place finishes in seven Korn Ferry starts.
Brown has recorded a pair of 60s over the past seven months. He set a new course record for the Nicklaus Course at PGA West in The American Express in January, missing a 7-foot birdie putt on the final hole that would have given him a 59, and shot a 60 in October at the Compliance Solutions Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Casey Jarvis
The 22-year-old from South Africa has quickly become a phenom on the DP World Tour (formerly European Tour) with back-to-back titles this year in the Magical Kenya Open and Investec South African Open Championship to earn a spot in the 2026 Masters Tournament and British Open.
He has risen to No. 72 in the OWGR and is making his seventh PGA Tour start – all over the past three years, including two majors – and third this season. He missed the cut at the Masters and tied for 20th in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans team event two weeks ago with partner A.J. Ewart of Canada.
On the Sunshine Tour based in South Africa, Jarvis was named the 2022-23 Rookie of the Year and won the 2025-26 Order of Merit. At 19, he became the youngest person to shoot 59 in pro competition at the Sunshine Tour’s 2023 Stella Artois Players Championship.
Marco Penge
The 27-year-old from England is the highest ranked player in the field at 39th in the OWGR. He won three times on the DP World Tour last year to finish second in the 2025 Race to Dubai standings and earn dual membership on the PGA Tour for 2026.
He is 71st in FedExCup points this season with a tie for fourth in the Valspar Championship in March his only top-20 finish among seven cuts made in 11 events.
Penge also holds the distinction of being suspended for three months by the DP World Tour in December 2024 for breaching betting rules. He reportedly admitted to placing small bets on professional golf events, though none involving tournaments he was participating in.
Aaron Rai
Rai is the other player in the field in the top 50 in the OWGR at 42nd. He is one of the more recent PGA Tour winners in the field with a victory at the 2024 Wyndham Championship for his lone PGA Tour win. He recorded 23 top-25 finishes on tour between 2024-25, including four top-five finishes in 2024.
The Englishman has made six of eight PGA Tour cuts this season with a pair of top-25 finishes but no top-20s, and is 127th in FedExCup points.
Jimmy Stanger
The 31-year-old is trying to become a three-time winner at The Dunes Club.
Stanger won the 2016 General Hackler Championship collegiate event, sharing medalist honors with Matt NeSmith as a University of Virginia junior at 9-under par over 54 holes. Later that year he won the 110th Southern Amateur Championship at The Dunes Club with a 12-under 276 that included a final-round 66.
Stanger earned a 2023 Korn Ferry Tour win and has made four of seven cuts on the PGA Tour this year with three top-35 finishes. He missed the cut in his one appearance in the Myrtle Beach Classic in 2024.
Harry Higgs
Higgs became a fan favorite in Myrtle Beach last year for his play and affable personality. He fell victim to Ryan Fox’s 50-foot chip-in on the first hole of a playoff last year, along with fellow runner-up Mackenzie Hughes.
He will try to regain the form he had in Myrtle Beach last May on a familiar course. He has failed to record a top-20 in 19 PGA Tour events since his close call at The Dunes Club, and got into the field as an alternate Tuesday when William Mouw withdrew.
Kevin Yu
In his 100th PGA Tour start, the native of China appears ready to earn a second tour win at The Dunes Club.
The winner of the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship has a tie for fourth and solo fourth in the first two Myrtle Beach Classics, and has recorded a pair of top-10 finishes on tour since last year’s tournament with a third at the 2025 RBC Canadian Open and seventh at the Valero Texas Open last month.
The only other player with top-10s in the first two Myrtle Beach Classics is Fox, with whom he tied for fourth in 2024.
Billy Horschel
The 2014 winner of the FedExCup season-long points championship on the PGA Tour is making his Myrtle Beach Classic debut.
The 39-year-old has eight PGA Tour wins coming between 2013-24, with the most recent being the 2024 Corales Puntacana Championship. Thus far this season, Horschel has made nine of 12 cuts with a tie for 13th in the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March and tie for sixth with partner Tom Hoge two weeks ago in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Horschel is one of two FedExCup champions in the field, along with Brandt Snedeker (2012), who has missed the cut in each of his two Myrtle Beach Classic appearances.
Matt Kuchar
Kuchar, 47, has nine PGA Tour wins to match the most in the field with Koepka and Snedeker, the last coming at the 2019 Sony Open in Hawaii. He owns a tour win in South Carolina at the 2014 RBC Heritage in Hilton Head Island.
Kuchar is 179th in the OWGR, and is looking to make just his third cut in his eighth PGA Tour start this season.
Playing their way in
Ryan Ruffels won The Q at Myrtle Beach, a competition between eight YouTube golf creators and influencers, to earn a spot in the field.
He carded a 1-under 71 at Pawleys Plantation on April 30 to complete the two-round competition that included head-to-head match play contests at Rivers Edge Golf Club to determine the four finalists – Ruffels, Grant Horvat, Micah Morris and Luke Kwon.
Horvat opened up a lead with four consecutive birdies to start his round, but Ruffels’ steady play down the stretch earned him a two-stroke win when Horvat made bogey and double bogey on the final two holes.
Ruffels, an American-born Australian who now plays out of Orlando, has 55K subscribers on YouTube and 80K followers on Instagram.
He is no stranger to the top level of the game. He’s making his 21st PGA Tour start and has made 10 cuts, with a tie for 20th in the 2016 Zurich Classic of New Orleans his best finish. His most recent PGA Tour start came in 2022. He also has a tie for second in 2020 among 51 Korn Ferry starts.
Matt Atkins (2024) and Nathan Franks (2025) won the first two The Q competitions.
Four players earned spots in the field through a 94-player qualifier Monday at TPC Myrtle Beach in Murrells Inlet.
Amateur Connor Doyal of Charleston and Petr Hruby of the Czech Republic shared medalist honors at 7-under 65, while Texans Thomas Rosenmueller and Nathan Petronzio emerged from a four-player playoff for the final two spots over RJ Manke of Washington state and Mickey DeMorat of Florida after the four shot 66s.
Myrtle Beach Classic tee times begin at 6:50 a.m. Thursday, and the Wednesday celebrity pro-am also begins before 7 a.m.
The tournament will also feature concerts following play Friday and Saturday, with The Beach Boys and Italian singer Benadetta Caretta scheduled to perform after the second round, and Julio and the Saltines scheduled to perform following the third round.
ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic tickets can be purchased by visiting myrtlebeachclassic.com. Ticket options start at $65 for Thursday and Sunday rounds, $71 for Friday and Saturday rounds, and $44 for Wednesday’s pro-am. VIP and weekly general admission tickets are also available.
Children under 16 will be admitted free with a ticketed adult, and military and first responders will have access to two free tickets Wednesday and discounted tickets thereafter.
