The world’s best players made their presence felt in the first tournament of the season at the 2026 American Express, where Scottie Scheffler led the way with a 63 on Thursday and a 64 on Friday, leading the way into the weekend in 17th place. Scheffler took advantage of ideal desert conditions to dominate La Quinta Country Club and the Nicklaus Tournament Course and finished two rounds at American Express without a bogey.
Due to the lack of wind, this tournament’s three-course rotation offers little protection against the world’s best players, and no one can attack them better than Scheffler.
The world’s No. 1 golfer will now move to PGA West’s Stadium Course, but the final 36 holes present a bigger challenge than the other two courses. Scheffler is excited to play on a course that rewards great play and punishes mistakes.
“That golf course is much more difficult than the other two courses in terms of hitting the ball. You have to get the ball into play,” Scheffler said. “You can hit low numbers, but you have to actually put the ball in play. You can get punished pretty quickly. There’s a lot of water on the golf course. I think it’s a really good challenge. I think it’s a great course in that when you’re hitting well and keeping the ball in place, you can hit really low numbers. If you’re not, you’re going to get punished pretty hard.”
Joining Scheffler at the top of the leaderboard is 18-year-old Blaze Brown, who played his sixth consecutive competitive round of golf on Friday after participating in Korn Ferry Tour events in the Bahamas from Sunday through Wednesday.
Brown also played Friday at the Nicklaus Tournament Course, going 8 under through the first seven holes (starting on the back nine) and firmly on the clock for 59th place. Brown reached 12 under through 15 holes. That means he only needed one birdie in his final three holes to finish better than 59th place, the 16th round in PGA Tour history.
Brown was unable to capitalize on his great tee shots on the par-5 seventh and par-3 eighth, and needed a birdie on the ninth, the 18th, to shoot a 59. After hitting the drive hard, he had a gap wedge on his approach to get within 5 feet and made a short birdie putt.
Unfortunately for Brown, he missed his birdie putt to the far right and finished par-par, shooting a 60 and setting a new course record at the Nicklaus Tournament Course.
Asked if he felt more pressure on the final three holes, Brown said with a laugh, “Of course…of course I did.” “I just stuck to my game plan. I said I was going to hit the shots I could control and unfortunately I wasn’t able to get the job done this time. But I’m very happy to hit 60 shots on the PGA Tour.”
At La Quinta Country Club, Andrew Putnam tied Brown for the course record with a 12-under 60, but also failed to make a birdie on the final hole and shot a 59. Putnam shot a 60 after a lackluster 72 on Thursday, moving him up one spot into the top 20 of the leaderboard.
Brown’s 60 points earned him the 50th spot and will share the lead with Scheffler heading into the weekend. Like Scheffler, he will play a third round on the tougher Stadium Course before the 54-hole cut and everyone finishes Pete Dye’s test in the desert.
leader
T1. Scottie Scheffler, Blaise Brown (-17): Because of the 54-hole cut, the repairs won’t be seen until Sunday, meaning Scheffler and Brown won’t play together on move-in day. Perhaps that could help the younger Brown. He would be able to get at least an extra day without the added stress and pressure of facing off against the best golfers in the game. Friday’s 60 seconds will be tough to match, but he’s on par with the best mark of his young career in 2025, when he played eight games and broke three but didn’t finish in the top 25.
Meanwhile, Scheffler is aiming to do something he has never done in his illustrious career: win one of the first five events of the season. If there’s a player with the physique to keep running low on the Stadium Course, it’s Scheffler. He will look to win on the wire to open the 2026 season.
contestants
3. Sith Thing (-16).
T4. SH Kim, Matt McCarty (-15)
T6. Eric Cole, Rickie Fowler, Nico Echavarria, Windham Clark, Jacob Bridgman, Nick Taylor (-14)
T12. Russell Henry, Patrick Cantlay, Ben Griffin, and 3 others (-13)
Although Kim couldn’t shoot a 60, his 7-under effort on the Stadium Course was very impressive and kept pace with Scheffler before he had a crack at La Quinta Country Club on Saturday. Clark’s 64 at the Stadium Course was his lowest round of the day as he moved into the top 10, but he will similarly move to La Quinta CC and look to improve further in the third round.
Beyond those two, there are several other sluggers lurking in the top 20, with Fowler, Griffin, Henry, and Cantlay all hitting the ground running and focusing on the weekend.
If the wind stays light throughout the weekend, there will be more scores in the low 60s and players will have a good chance of moving up the leaderboard. Scheffler can enjoy this condition as much as any other player, but the challenge for them all is the top name, as he is a tough guy to catch.
This tournament still feels like a wide-open tournament given what’s possible on these courses, with just about every other player at the top, but Scheffler’s presence makes it much less likely that he’ll create any big gaps on the pack’s backs. That being said, I do see a potential for a 59 this week, and anyone who can still flex at La Quinta CC or the Nicklaus Tournament Course on Saturday will likely have a vision for moves similar to what we saw from Brown and Putnam on Friday.
Finish in style
Tony Finau doesn’t have the scoring gear he needs to compete so far this week, but his approach on Friday’s final hole gave him momentum heading into the weekend, using a wedge to hole out from the fairway for eagle on No. 9 at the Nicklaus Tournament Course.
This puts him at 8 under for the tournament, allowing him to enter Saturday in 61st place. With the number of cuts still to be settled, Finau’s second round-closing eagle could prove crucial to his chances of earning a tee time on Sunday.
Updated 2026 American Express odds and picks
Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook
- Scotty Scheffler (+134)
- Similarly (+410)
- Ben Griffin (+1450)
- Wyndham Clark (+1650)
- Patrick Cantlay (+1850)
- Blade Brown (+1950)
- Jacob Bridgman (+2100)
When the scores are this good and the leaderboard is this crowded, you want to take a few swings at long shots, especially if you’re going to get another round outside of the stadium course. At the same time, with Scheffler at No. 1, you probably don’t want to be too aggressive in adding any positions other than Scotty.
Clark is an especially interesting player considering he is getting La Quinta CC and looks to be in much better shape to start 2026 than he looked in 2025. He’s a guy who can go low, and so far this week’s low rounds have been held at the Stadium Course. So if we can put ourselves in a position to compete, we should have plenty of confidence come Sunday. I’m not averse to picking on Sam Barnes, who is even lower in the league with 92 wins and 1 loss. He was just five strokes behind, and is known for being obsessed with the putter and posting extremely low scores.
