Kristoffer Reitan made his 15th career PGA Tour start last week at the Truist Championship, and left Quail Hollow on Sunday $3.6 million richer as the winner of a signature event and a player who now has his foreseeable future mapped out. That’s not too bad for a guy who was strongly considering just doing YouTube golf full-time three years ago.
In Myrtle Beach, a stretch of 2,821 days was broken with Brandt Snedeker earning his first win on the PGA Tour since 2018. The Nashville native was overcome with emotion, and given what his body has been through in recent years, it was certainly understandable to see the tears flowing. A 45-year-old Snedeker winning on Tour in the year 2026 was not on anyone’s bingo card.
As time somehow keeps moving faster and faster, we’ve already arrived at the year’s second major championship. That music you hear is Michael Block’s. It’s PGA Championship week, and for the first time in a long time, there is some juice behind it thanks to the venue, and we have a few early thoughts to get to before diving headfirst into content throughout the week.
This is Par Talk, a weekly read to get you caught up on all the happenings that took place in professional golf over the week that you need to know. You can follow Mark on X @itismarkharris and email him at mark.harris@outkick.com
No disrespect to Kristoffer Reitan, but when Brandt Snedeker wins a golf tournament, he’s getting the leadoff spot every single time in Par Talk.
Just like every other golf kid born in the early ’90s, Tiger Woods was the guy for me growing up. Still, when I started taking the game semi-seriously as a teenager and also began looking beyond the first page of leaderboards, the Tour visor-wearing guy who made every single putt he looked at became my favorite player to watch. It has been that way ever since.
As random as it is, I still have clear memories of watching Snedeker earn his first win in 2007 from the dingy clubhouse of a nine-hole course with my dad and his buddies in my hometown. I sure as hell remember the 2008 Masters when he dumped it into the creek in front of the 13th green on both Saturday and Sunday before ultimately finishing T-3. Trevor Immelman went on to win by three shots in 2008 with Snedeker shooting 77 in the final round.
My dad, brother, and I actually got a 2008 Masters hat signed by Immelman and Snedeker later that year.
Snedeker sobbed like a baby during a brief meeting with the media following his heartbreak at Augusta in ’08. That video used to live on YouTube somewhere. Maybe it was removed so it would never hit my algorithm again.
Fast-forward 18 years, with a FedEx Cup trophy on his mantel and the title of Presidents Cup captain to his name, Snedeker sobbed like a baby again. Dunes Golf and Beach Club in Myrtle Beach may not be the stage Augusta National is, but as the venue for his 10th victory on Tour and first in nearly eight years, it’s a special one for Snedeker.
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Snedeker underwent an experimental surgery on his sternum in 2022 in which doctors took a bone out of his hip, cut his sternum open and essentially built, and essentially built a new one in its place with the piece of his hip bone. On top of that, the undefeated Father Time reared his ugly head, and it felt like the senior circuit may be the next time Snedeker would have a real chance of winning a tournament.
There have been flashes in 2026, but it all fell into place in Myrtle Beach with a pair of 66s and 67s to earn a one-shot victory over Mark Hubbard. Snedeker got it done in his standard fashion, ranking 74th in distance off the tee and fourth in putting.
“To not have my card the last couple of years, to be struggling to do what I love, you know, to still have a passion to play this game the way I want to play it and to show people how I can still do it, especially not playing my best and struggling the way I did to come back and fight, claw my way back and play some great golf this year even though it hasn’t seemed like it to people outside,” Snedeker said after his win.
“I knew I was playing well. I just hadn’t been able to put it all together. Hopefully it shows my family, my kids something. Just, you know, ten wins out here is an accomplishment. Something I’m very proud of.”
That quote from Sneds says it all.
The 28-year-old from Norway had been playing some strong golf over the last month, with three top-15 finishes in his four starts leading up to the Truist Championship, but earning his first victory on Tour in a signature event on a major championship golf course? Come on.
Some may claim that Reitan had the advantage of not having to go toe-to-toe with any big-name players on Sunday, as it was Rickie Fowler, Alex Fitzpatrick and Sungjae Im mixing with him during the final round. On the flip side of that, Reitan played his way to the top of the board, while others simply didn’t, and he can’t be criticized for that.
Reitan’s final-round 69 was enough to get the job done by two shots at Quail Hollow, and it’s hard not to be impressed with his play down the stretch. Back-to-back birdies on 14 and 15, followed by three relatively comfortable pars to close things out, is easier said than done.
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He had a tremendous stroke of luck on the par-4 16th with his tee shot somehow avoiding a fairway bunker, but every winner gets a lucky break; his just happened to come with a few swings left to make.
In 15 career starts on Tour, Reitan has made 11 cuts, earned a victory in a signature event and has made nearly $5.3 million. Not a bad way to bounce back after nearly giving up on professional golf and just doing YouTube.
“I was, at that point (in 2022), considering whether or not I wanted to continue playing professionally. So, yeah, I just had some thoughts about how to make the game a little bit more fun, a little bit more relaxed,” Reittan said following his win.
“Yeah, I think YouTube golf would have given me maybe some of that fun competitiveness back, maybe not the serious competitiveness, if that makes sense. So I was just trying to find ways to make it more fun to give my journey in golf a little bit of energy, and trying to have fun while I’m playing so that I can endure the hardships that follow, yeah, with professional golf.”
It’s safe to say he made the right decision in continuing the grind of professional golf.
It’s amazing how such a simple, albeit vastly important factor, can make a golf tournament so much more intriguing.
With each of the previous two PGA Championships being played at golf courses we’re all too familiar with (Valhalla and Quail Hollow), this week’s event has more excitement around it due to the fact that we haven’t seen Aronimink since the 2018 BMW Championship.
You couple that with the fact that it feels like the most wide-open major championship we’ve had in years, and we could be in store for some fireworks, which is not often said while on the topic of the PGA Championship.
Who knows what version of Scottie Scheffler we get? Rory McIlroy just shot 75 on Saturday at Quail Hollow. Is his game in good enough order to win major No. 7? What about the LIV boys? Aronimink should fit Bryson DeChambeau’s game well, but are we sure he even cares? It’s a major championship in the Northeast; therefore, a red-hot Cameron Young should be comfortable.
We truly do not know what to expect at Aronimink this week, and the unpredictability levels like this are needed now and again, and certainly so for major championships.
