The beginning of 2026 marked an annual tradition for many PGA of America Golf Professionals in search of warm-weather playing opportunities: the 2026 PGA Winter Championships presented by GolfPass and On Location at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
Kicking off the six-event stretch were the Quarter Century (won by Judd Gibb and Gary Robison on Jan. 7–8) and Senior Stroke Play Championships (won by Justin Hicks and Robison on Jan. 11–13), followed by the Senior-Junior Team Championship (won by Bob Sowards and Ben Kern on Jan. 26–29) and the Four-Ball Stableford Team Championship (won again by Sowards and Kern on Feb. 1–3). Closing out the championships conducted at PGA Golf Club were the Stroke Play Championship (won by Andre Chi on Feb. 8-10) and Women’ Stroke Play Championship (won by Allie Knight and Barb Moxness on Feb. 15–17).
A review of all six PGA Winter Championships follows, beginning with the season-ending event, the Women’s Stroke Play Championship:
Women’s Stroke Play Championship Wanamaker/Ryder Courses Feb. 15–17
Knight wins by two strokes, while Moxness prevails in a playoff
Allie Knight didn’t know where she stood during the final round of the PGA Women’s Stroke Play Championship on Feb. 17. That’s probably a good thing.
After starting the day with a four-shot lead, Knight was having, well, a nightmare round. The Knoxville, Tennessee, resident was 7-over through 14 holes on the Wanamaker Course and had dropped several shots behind the leaders.
But she birdied the 15th hole with a 20-foot putt and parred the final three holes to rally for a two-shot victory at PGA Golf Club. She shot a 6-over 78 in difficult conditions to finish at 5-over 220.
“I’m excited to get a win out here. It’s a great feeling,” Knight said. “Definitely wasn’t the best day today. It was just tough conditions all three days with the wind. But, you know, to get a win – that’s awesome, that’s huge.”
Knight finished two shots ahead of Stephanie Connelly-Eiswerth (70) – who is five and a half months pregnant – of Fleming Island, Florida, and Allie White (73) of Lancaster, Ohio. Connelly-Eiswerth, who birdied the 16th to get to 4-under for the round, and White both bogeyed the final two holes.
“It’s definitely different playing pregnant. I wasn’t hitting the ball as far,” said Connelly-Eiswerth, the 2024 Women’s Stroke Play Champion.
Knight best survived the conditions, even when she didn’t have her best game.
“I hung in there and I was trying to just tell myself, ‘Just do the best you can do, right?’” she said. “It’s probably one of my biggest wins in the PGA (events). I’ve gotten a lot of second places, so to finally get the first win is huge.”
Joanna Coe of Haverford, Pennsylvania, won a two-hole playoff over Ashley Grier of Port St. Lucie, Florida, to earn a spot in the 2026 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship June 25–28 at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota.
In the Senior Division, Barb Moxness of Stuart, Florida, defended her title with a playoff win over Lisa Grimes and Christy Longfield.
Moxness made a clutch par save on the first playoff hole from behind the green, barely getting her ball on the putting surface before it trickled 8 feet from the hole.
“That was the highlight of the day,” Moxness said. “It kept me in the playoff.
“With my age – I’m 72 – I’m grateful I still get to play this game.”
Stroke Play Championship Dye/Wanamaker Courses Feb. 8–10
Chi beats Kern in a playoff to win Stroke Play
It’s not easy to beat Ben Kern in a playoff. Or to win with an 8 on the scorecard.
Andre Chi of Hicksville, New York, managed to do both on Feb. 10, making a 17-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to win the PGA Stroke Play Championship at PGA Golf Club.
“I was hoping to not face Ben in a playoff,” said Chi, PGA, an Assistant Golf Professional at Deepdale Country Club. “I played with him the first two rounds. He’s a great ball striker and I had a feeling he would be one of the biggest contenders today.
“Just barely touched it (the playoff putt). And it’s nice to knock one of these ones off.”
Chi shot 3-under 69 on the Dye Course to finish at 10-under 206. Kern birdied the final hole to force the playoff after a 65.
Kern started the final round four shots behind co-leaders Chi and Cooper Hrabak from Pinehurst, North Carolina, but passed them by opening with five consecutive birdies. Kern added a birdie at the seventh hole to shoot 30 on the front nine, but made 10 consecutive pars before the final-hole birdie from 35 feet.
“It was nice to make some early birdies to make sure the leaders saw me coming,” said Kern, General Manager at Hickory Hills Golf Club in Grove City, Ohio. “I played great on the back, had a lot of makeable putts, just didn’t go in. I was four back. To even think I was in a playoff was awesome.”
Chi overcame one of the worst numbers – a snowman – on the par-5 fifth hole, when he hit a lost ball off the tee and took four shots from beside the green. He charged back into contention with four birdies on the first five holes of the back nine, then saved a par at No. 17 from 110 yards.
Kern almost won his third consecutive PGA Winter Championship event after teaming with Bob Sowards to win the Senior-Junior Team Championship and the Four-Ball Stableford Team Championship. He came close.
Joe Monte of Norwalk, Connecticut, finished third, highlighted by a hole-in-one on the 160-yard sixth hole with a 9-iron (Caleb Ryan matched that feat).
Dylan Newman (66) of Jupiter, Florida, tied for fourth with Hrabak.
Four-Ball Stableford Team Championship Wanamaker/Ryder Courses Feb. 1–3
Sowards and Kern prevail in second consecutive PGA Winter Championship event
Bob Sowards was prophetic when asked if he and teammate Ben Kern were the team to beat in the PGA Four-Ball Stableford Team Championship.
“As long as he’s my partner,” Sowards said, “we’re the team to beat.”
Kern proved Sowards’ point, making eight birdies on Feb. 3 to lead the team to a one-point victory in the PGA Winter Championships event at PGA Golf Club. Kern and Sowards made five consecutive birdies on the back nine to rally for their second team title in five days.
The Ohio-based PGA of America Golf Professionals scored 19 points to finish with 45, edging Josh Rackley of Wilmington, North Carolina, and Cooper Hrabak from Pinehurst, North Carolina, by a point.
“He got the putter hot on the back, and I was just trying to kind of stay out of his way and be there if he needed me,” said Sowards, PGA, Director of Instruction at Kinsale Golf and Fitness Club. “When he’s making birdies, I just kind of keep the towel wet and watch the ball.”
Sowards and Kern combined for only seven points on the front nine, and were barely in the top five when they made the turn on the Wanamaker Course. But Kern rolled in a 15–footer on the 10th hole, one of five birdies he made on the back nine.
“We had a little chat on the way to the back nine that we needed to get the fire lit,” said Kern, General Manager at Hickory Hills Golf Club. “We got that lit right away at No. 10, and we just snowballed that pretty much the whole back nine. It was nice to get off and running.”
It was the third Four-Ball Stableford Team Championship title for the duo, the previous coming in 2022 and 2024.
Sowards and Kern also won the previous week’s Senior-Junior Team Championship. All told, they beat 258 teams in the last week.
“It’s an honor to win,” Kern said. “There’s a lot of good teams out here.
“You’ve got to play good golf to win these team events. You can’t go around with your B game.”
Hrabak, who won a PGA Tournament Series event in December, made a 30-foot putt on the 18th hole to secure second place with Rackley, just ahead of Brian Cairns (43) of Milford, Michigan, and Tim Pearce of Royal Oak, Michigan.
Senior-Junior Team Championship Dye/Ryder/Wanamaker Courses Jan. 26–29
Sowards and Kern overcome frost delay, cruise to another PGA Senior-Junior
Mother Nature proved to be the only way to delay Bob Sowards and Ben Kerns’ inexorable march to victory in the PGA Senior-Junior Team Championship at PGA Golf Club.
A 45-minute frost delay prior to the final round on Jan. 29 only slowed the inevitable: The dynamic duo of Sowards and Kern holding the plaques for the fourth time in the last six years.
They combined to shoot a 5-under 66 to finish at 33-under 253 and cruise to a five-shot win over the team of Chris Haarlow of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Brandon Einstein of Clemmons, North Carolina.
“We team so well together because we think about golf the same way,” said Sowards, PGA, the Director of Instruction at Kinsale Golf and Fitness Club. “We have the same routine, same mannerisms, think about shots the same way. And for me, I’m playing with the best player in the PGA. I’ve just got to help him a little bit.”
“Chemistry is a big thing,” said Kern, PGA, General Manager at Hickory Hills Golf Club. “It’s very easy for us to stay in our flow and play good golf together.”
The championship seemed over when the pair of Ohio-based golf professionals shot 59 – yep, a 59 –on the Ryder Course in the first round to take athree-shot lead over defending champions MikeStone and Patrick Wilkes-Krier.
A 63 on the Dye Course stretched the Sowards-Kern lead to four at the halfway point. A 65 on the Wanamaker Course padded their lead to eight entering the final round.
In the final round, the closest any team came to Sowards-Kern was four shots when Haarlow- Einstein birdied the 18th to finish off their impressive 10-under 61.
“Our goal was to get to 40 (under). We wanted to stay aggressive,” Sowards said.
Sowards and Kern won the PGA Senior-Junior Team Championship in 2021, 2022 and 2024 before Kern sat out last year’s championship. They split the $10,000 first prize.
Haarlow and Einstein shot the low round of the day on Jan. 29, a 10-under 61, to finish second. Rod Perry of Port Orange, Florida, and Jeff Sorenson of Blaine, Minnesota, were third at 26-under with a 64.Bill Van Orman of Watkinsville, Georgia, and Dylan Newman of Jupiter, Florida, were fourth(66-262).
Senior Stroke Play Championship Ryder/Wanamaker Courses Jan. 11–13
Hicks claims PGA Senior Stroke Play on same day PGA of America honors him
On the day he was officially selected the national 2025 Senior PGA Professional Player of the Year by the PGA of America, Justin Hicks showed why on Jan. 13.
The Wellington, Florida, resident fired a 5-under 66 on the Ryder Course to cruise to a 4-shot victory in the 50-59 Division of the PGA Senior Stroke Play Championship at PGA Golf Club.
Talk about validation.
“You hope that it works out that way, but there’s really nothing in this game that you deserve,” said Hicks, PGA, a Teaching Professional at Stonebridge Country Club in Boca Raton. “You just go out there and play your best and add it up at the end.”
Hicks started the final round with a one-shot lead and ended it with a four-shot advantage over Omar Uresti (69) of Austin, Texas, at 13-under 201. They were the only two players to shoot in the 60s all three days.
Hicks and Uresti were tied after 13 holes, before Uresti made double bogey on the par-4 14th hole. Hicks added birdies at the 15th and 18th holes to finish off the win.
Gary Robison carded a 4-under 68 on the Wanamaker Course to defend his title in the 60-and-older Division of the Senior Stroke Play with a one-shot victory over Brian Cairns of Milford, Michigan, at 10-under 205.
It was the third victory in this event in the last four years for the Port St. Lucie, Florida, resident.
Unlike last year, when Robison shot 20-under to win by three shots, his title wasn’t clinched until the final green. Robison and Cairns were tied at 10-under, but Cairns missed a tricky 8-footer for abogey.
“Brian had the same putt I had – mine broke about three times more than I thought,” said Robison, 71, who also captured the 65-and-older Division in the previous week’s Quarter Century Championship.
Mark Anderson of St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, shot one of the lowest rounds of the PGA Winter Championship, a 9-under on the Ryder Course that included two eagles, six birdies and a bogey on the final hole. It was the 65-year-old’s lowest competitive round.
“I had all parts of my game working until that last hole,” said Anderson, who improved from T36 to T6. “I was thinking about a 59 until I left my putt on the next-to-last hole on the edge.”
Quarter Century Championship Ryder/Wanamaker Courses Jan. 7–8
Gibb and Robison win PGA Quarter Century; 78-year-old Coffee earns Half Century title
Gary Robison and Judd Gibb proved on Jan. 8 it’s not how you start a tournament, but how you finish that matters most.
Both PGA of America Golf Professionals started the final round of the Quarter Century Championship outside the top five in their respective age divisions, but closed hotter than the South Florida weather to win at PGA Golf Club.
Robison, a 71-year-old from Port St. Lucie, shot a 5-under 30 on the back-nine of the par-71 Ryder Course for a 65 to get into a playoff with first-round leader Kirk Stauffer at 10-under 132. Robison won the 65-and-older Division with a par on the first extra hole to claim his second PGA Winter Championship in the last year.
“The back side was really good,” said Robison, who teaches at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana, during the summer. “I didn’t miss a green or a fairway.”
Gibb, who started the final round tied for sixth, made five birdies in a six-hole stretch for a 5-under 67 on the Wanamaker Course to win the 50-to-64 Division by three shots at 8-under 136.
“My putter got really hot on the back nine,” said Gibb, PGA, an instructor at Hanson’s Custom Golf in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
On the playoff hole, Robison and Stauffer both missed birdie putts of about 20 feet. Robison made his 4-foot par putt, but Stauffer missed his 3½-footer.
“I was kind of sad about that, because he played so well,” Robison said of Stauffer. “You hate to see that. We’ve all been there. I got lucky.”
There was nothing fortuitous about the 65, though. Robison has proven he can go low, shooting a 60 in last year’s Senior Stroke Play Championship. He also has eclipsed 20-under in a pair of 54-hole PGA Winter Championships.
Matt Seitz (68) of Hutchinson, Kansas, wasthird at 133.
Gibb was one of only three players to shoot in the 60s on the Wanamaker Course. He was even- par through 11 holes before he got on the birdie train to steadily pull away. Frank Esposito (71) of Florham Park, New Jersey, finished second at 5-under 139.
Wendell Coffee of Peachtree City, Georgia, wonthe Half Century Championship with a 2-under 69 to edge first-round leader Jay Horton of Port St. Lucie, Florida, at 5-under 137. The 78-year-old Coffee bettered his age by a combined 19 shots.
