The calendar is loaded. The handicaps are stamped. Q School is in the books. And somewhere out there, a field full of golfers is circling dates, polishing wedges, and quietly talking themselves into this being their year.
Welcome to the 2026 Mulligan Tour season.
With more than forty events stretched across April through the fall, a star-studded roster, an influx of new talent, and a handful of all-time records within legitimate striking distance, this season shapes up as one of the most compelling in recent memory. The Mulligan Tour season preview includes two defending champions are back with targets on their backs. The tour’s all-time winningest players are still grinding. And the four majors — the Memorial, the Harbour Pointe Open, the Match Play Championship, and the Tournament Championship — are all waiting to hand out the hardware that matters most.
The 2026 season doesn’t need a warning shot. It just needs a tee time.
The Defending Champions
Chuck Withey — 2025 Money Title
Chuck Withey ended 2025 sitting comfortably atop the money list with $227.69 in earnings, reminding everyone that consistency pays. Withey, who holds the all-time single-season earnings record at $357 (set back in 2018), has been one of the tour’s most reliable performers for a decade — and with career earnings now approaching $2,307, he remains very much in the conversation for that category’s all-time leaderboard. Defending a money title is never easy on a tour this competitive. He’ll need to be sharp from wire to wire. Expect him to be.
Willi Hesse — 2025 Tournament Championship
Nobody in that field handed Willi Hesse anything last fall at Pine Knob. He went out and shot a net -2 to win the 2025 Tour Championship outright — one of the toughest titles on the calendar. Hesse carries a 19 handicap into 2026, which means the field will be gunning for him with a freshly calibrated number. But anyone who wins the Tour Championship doesn’t do it by accident. Keep his name in the preview conversation all the way through August.
Mike Lee — 2025 Tin Cup Classic Champion
The season opens April 11th at Hickory Creek with the Tin Cup Classic, and Mike Lee arrives as the man to beat. Lee won it last year and will step to the first tee with the defending title hanging over his shoulder. He carries a 11.7 handicap and is proven capable of putting up numbers when it counts. The Tin Cup has a way of setting the tone for entire seasons — the player who lifts that trophy on April 11th tends to carry momentum deep into the spring.
The Contenders
Jeff Klipa — The Record Book Isn’t Going Anywhere
Jeff Klipa owns this tour’s wins record. Full stop. Thirty-three career victories since 2003 — five more than the next closest active player — and counting. At 13.4 handicap, Klipa is still every bit a threat to win any event he enters. He doesn’t need a headline moment this season to cement his legacy, but every win adds another line to a résumé that is already the best in Mulligan Tour history. Thirty-five wins? Forty, eventually? The math still works. He just has to keep showing up and doing what he’s always done.
Greg Kline — Chasing $3,000
This is the storyline. Greg Kline walks into 2026 with $2,969.45 in career earnings — the all-time record — and needs just $30.55 more to become the first player in Mulligan Tour history to crack the $3,000 mark. That number could fall at literally any event on the calendar. Kline also has 28 career wins, second only to Klipa, and hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down at a 10.7 handicap. He won events and cashed checks in 2025, and 2026 figures to bring more of the same. The moment he crosses $3,000, it goes in the record book for good.
Mike Prieskorn — Creeping Up the All-Time List
Twenty-four career wins. Prieskorn has been one of the tour’s most decorated players for over a decade, and at 13.6, he’s still a threat anywhere. He sits four wins back of Kline on the all-time leaderboard and could realistically close that gap — or blow past it — if he puts together a strong 2026. A five-win season has been done four times in Mulligan Tour history; Prieskorn doing it at this stage of his career would be something special.
Don Ward — The Quiet Standard
Don Ward carries a 5.8 handicap and owns a wall full of tour records: the all-time single-season putting average (28.91 in 2019), multiple 24-putt tournament performances, and a 69 gross that still sits near the top of the all-time low gross list. Ward is the kind of player who doesn’t make noise until Sunday afternoon — and then you look up and he’s three shots clear of the field. If he’s dialed in at the Memorial or the HPO, the leaderboard is going to know about it.
Kevin Gregoire — Hungry Again
Gregoire won five times in 2019 — one of only four players in tour history to hit that single-season mark — and at 6.6 handicap, the tools are still there. He flashed form at Q School 2, finishing with a net 79 and a gross 85 that drew some attention. The question heading into 2026 is whether Gregoire can put together the sustained run he knows he’s capable of. If the putter gets hot and the iron play comes around, five wins is not a ceiling — it’s a floor.
Tyler Floyd — The Scoring Average Standard
Floyd owns the lowest net scoring average in tour history at 68.00, set in 2019. He enters 2026 at 6.9 handicap, still near the top of the food chain. Nobody in the field matches his combination of raw talent and proven track record. If he plays a full schedule and stays locked in, watch for him to challenge that average.
Corey McCue — Statement Made at Q School
McCue announced 2026 early. In brutal cold and wind at Fox Creek, he carded a gross 81 off his 6 handicap for a net 75 that was never threatened — the Q School 1 win going away. McCue posted a 70.90 net scoring average in 2023, one of the best single-season numbers in tour history. At 6 handicap, he’s positioned to contend at every major. If the Q School performance is a preview, this might be McCue’s most complete season yet.
Jonathan Barnes — The Near-Scratch Wild Card
Barnes carries a 3.7 handicap — the lowest in the active field outside of scratch players — and showed last year he can go low. He’s posted a gross 70 (-2) in competition, which appears on the all-time low gross scorecard. At that handicap, Barnes gives away strokes to almost everyone, which means when he’s on, the net card is devastating. He’s one of the most dangerous players in the field and doesn’t always get mentioned first. He should be.
The Majors
Four events carry the weight of a season on their own.
The Memorial Tournament — May 9 at Gateway Golf Club
The Memorial is the Mulligan Tour’s most storied two-man major, and it has called Gateway Golf Club home for two decades. The course has produced some of the most dramatic finishes in tour history, and 2026 will be no different.
The 2025 title went to the Puffenberger/Fitzpatrick team, who won a playoff at net 62 (-10) matching the Cubel/Stalo team stroke for stroke before outlasting them in sudden death. Jeff Cubel and Chris Stalo, the 2024 champions, will be looking for redemption. A short walk back through the record books tells the story of this event’s elite pedigree: the Kiekbusch’s took it in 2021, the Hiestand tandem in 2022, Hesse/Ferlito in 2023. Gregoire/McCue, Klipa/Prieskorn, Floyd/Floyd, Withey/Kline — the same elite partnerships circle this event every May with serious intent.
The Memorial has produced 26 champions. No duo has won it three times. The 2026 field will be gunning for the trophy and the history.
The Commercial Underwriters Harbour Pointe Open — Course TBD
The HPO is the tour’s longest major — 36 holes, a cut line, and no hiding from the leaderboard over two full days of competition. It has been a proving ground for the tour’s most disciplined players since 1999, and its champion roll reads like a who’s who of Mulligan Tour royalty.
Brian Lardin has won this event three times (2016, 2018, 2024), making him the HPO’s most decorated champion in the modern era. But he didn’t go back-to-back in 2025 — Jeff Pasz claimed the title at Northville Hills with a two-day net of 140 (-4), holding off a hard-charging Jonathan Barnes who finished one stroke back at 141. Don Ward and Tyler Floyd were right there too, tying for fourth. That is the kind of contention the HPO produces: compact leaderboards where one bad round ends your tournament.
Rick Persichetti set the all-time putting record at Harbour Pointe in 2011 with 24 putts in a single round. That record still stands. The course hasn’t gotten any easier. The HPO champion earns every dollar.
The Match Play Championship — July 11–12 at Huron Meadows Metropark
There is no format in golf — amateur or otherwise — that exposes a player faster than match play. You cannot hide in the field. You cannot play for position. You win your hole or you lose it, and then you play the next one. Huron Meadows has hosted this event for years, and its fairways have seen upsets, comebacks, and gritty 19-hole battles that don’t show up in any stroke play stat.
Tyler Floyd won the 2025 title, defeating Chris Stalo in a 19-hole final the kind of grinding, pressure-packed conclusion that defines this event. Rich Dunmore made the final four in 2025, taking Floyd to 4&3 in the semifinals before falling short. The year before, Scott Wilsey entered as the 16 seed and ran the table, beating the 3-seeded Erika Fitzpatrick 4&2 in the final one of the great upsets in tournament history.
That’s the Match Play warning label: seedings are suggestions. The bracket can open up for anyone in the top 16 on the Mulligan Tour World Ranking, and it has done exactly that. Greg Kline won three straight Match Play titles from 2004–2006 and hasn’t lifted the trophy since. Kevin Gregoire won it in 2019. Corey McCue in 2021. Brian Lardin in 2023. The list of former champions who come back every July wanting another one is long. Floyd will defend. The field will be ready.
The Tour Championship — Course TBD
Every season eventually comes down to one question: who’s the best player on the Mulligan Tour right now? The Tour Championship answers it.
Willi Hesse has answered it two years running, winning back-to-back Tour Championships in 2024 and 2025. His 2025 title came with a net -2 at Pine Knob — a clean, dominant performance against a field full of the tour’s best. Nobody in this event’s history has won three consecutive Tour Championships. Hesse has a chance to do something that has never been done.
The history of this event reads like a monument to sustained excellence. Greg Kline has won the Tour Championship four times (2005, 2007, 2008, 2012) more than any other player — but hasn’t claimed the title in over a decade. Don Ward won back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Jeff Klipa won it in 2018. Kevin Gregoire in 2019. This event has a way of landing in the hands of players who define eras — and Hesse, if he can three-peat, would define this one.
The Tour Championship is the last word of the season. Every point earned, every major contended, every event played from April through the summer builds toward this. Whoever stands at the top of that leaderboard in the fall didn’t stumble into it.
New Blood: The 2026 Rookie Class
Twelve new players join the Mulligan Tour in 2026, all arriving primed and ready to build their games from the ground up. They came in through different doors — some by word of mouth, some pulled in by a friend who wouldn’t stop talking about Saturday morning golf — but they all showed up, and that’s where every Mulligan Tour story starts.
Several of them didn’t wait for the season to begin. Brent Brevak, Mike Wassman, David Wilson, Jamie Wilson, Vinnie Calles, Chase Keilitz, and John Donitzen were all out at Q School in late March, logging competitive rounds before the ink was dry on their memberships. Brevak and Wassman both carded 86 at Q School 2 — ball-striking rounds that drew mentions in the field. That kind of early effort matters. Players who show up to Q School arrive in April with competitive reps already in the bank.
Also joining the 2026 roster: John Duffy, David Jarboe, Jon Stanis, Randy Vershum, and Nancy Wright. Eleven of them will spend the spring building handicaps and learning the tour’s rhythms. The twelfth will surprise someone before Memorial Day.
By the time summer rolls around and the big events hit the calendar, a few of these names will have made their mark on a leaderboard. The question isn’t whether it happens — on this tour, it always does. The question is who goes first.
The Schedule at a Glance
The 2026 Mulligan Tour season opens April 11 with the Tin Cup Classic at Hickory Creek and runs through the fall. Notable stops along the way include the Sweet Sixteen (Apr 18), Animal House Classic (May 16), Fox Hunt (May 29), Holy Grail (June 20), Red, White & Blue (July 4), Crazy Brit (July 18), Big Dog Pro-AM (July 25), Tee It Up for Reese (Aug 2), the Players Championship (Aug 15), and the Canadian Open (Aug 29) — plus the four majors that define the season.
Forty-plus events. Two defending champions. A dozen new faces. All-time records within reach. And one more season to get after it.
See you at Hickory Creek.