2026 World Wide Technology Championship preview: PGA Tour doubleheader in Mexico

DJ Tuareg is still in Mexico. They're in the second of a back-to-back in Mexico with the Worldwide Technology Championship, moving from Vidanta Vallarta to El Cardenal in the Baja California portion of the country. I'm Ryan Balog with Golf News, and here with a preview of the Worldwide Technology Championship. Again, $6 million tournament, 120 players, just like last week, but we're in a different part of Mexico this week, and we have a slightly different defending champion. We've got Ben Griffin, who is the defending champion here this week. He played last week, had himself a pretty decent week at Vidanta Vallarta. This is an important week for him. It's a title defense after an end of an incredible year last year. He is in the FedExCup Top 50, so he's not worried about positioning into any tournaments for next year. This is just kind of a nice to have, a nice opportunity to be able to potentially go back-to-back as a champion on the PGA Tour in a singular event. He is one of two Top 50 players in the world competing this week by the official World Golf Ranking. The other is Ryan Gerrard, who's 23rd in the world. He's having himself a great year, just wants to stay fresh. And kind of maintain some semblance of momentum that he's had this year. He's played somewhat of an international schedule after the PGA Tour season has ended. And he's going to play another international event this week by playing in the World Wide Technology Championship. We've got a number of players who are kind of knocking on the door of that 51-60 position where you want to be at the end of the FedExCup fall. To not only maintain your tour status, of course, by being in the top 100, but that will also get you into the first two signature events of 2027. Both played in California, one at Pebble Beach, one at Riviera. Huge opportunity to get into those tournaments. We've got Jackson Coyle playing this week, where he is 59th in the official world golf ranking. Goal for him this week is to try to get in the top 50 in the official world golf ranking. If you can comfortably do so, get there by the end of the year. There's a lot of opportunities that come from being in the top 50 in the world, basically get you in the major championships for 2027. He's already a winner on the PGA Tour. That got him into the Masters, which is great. But getting into the top 50 in the world gets you some additional opportunities, including playing in the PGA Championship, playing in the U.S. Open. It gets you a whole lot of stuff. So this is an opportunity for him to play well this week. Same thing for Keith Mitchell. He had himself a great U.S. Open. He's trying to get in the top 50 in the world, maintain his status inside that 51 through 60 position. In the FedExCup fall standings, you've got a number of players who are trying to crawl inside that top 100 position. Make sure they keep their status because after this week, we have two more tournaments on the schedule. Maintain that top 100 status of the FedExCup fall. You've got the Austin Championship, formerly the Good Good Championship, now presented by Compliance Solutions in Texas. And then the season-ending tournament, at least on an official basis, the RSM Classic on St. Simons Island in Georgia.