PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Corey Connors knows exactly what it takes to succeed at the Players Championship. And considering how he started the 2026 season, he’s more motivated than ever to post a great result at TPC Sawgrass and gain momentum before the start of a busy spring.
Connors, who has had the best statistical performance at TPC Sawgrass over the past five years, has yet to find his stride so far this season. But if history has shown anything, this week is set to be the week.
Canadian Trail has followed Hideki Matsuyama and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in strokes gained at TPC Sawgrass since 2019, and has had consecutive top 15 finishes at The Players, including a tie for sixth last year. This is his best performance of his career.
“This is one of my favorite courses we play on tour,” Conners told Sportsnet.ca. “There are a lot of holes that fit my eye really well, and there are some that don’t, but you can still attack them.
“It’s a fun and challenging golf course to be here, but once I gained some experience it helped me a lot to be able to hit birdies and hit good shots.”
Conners’ best result of the season was a tie for 24th at the Sony Open in Hawaii in January. In 2025, Connors turned things around on the greens, ranking 67th in Strokes Gained Putting, which, along with his always-outstanding ball-striking ability, helped him finish tied for fourth in the final FedEx Cup standings in August.
But this year, Conners was about 100 spots worse in the putter category and admitted he was “a little lost” with the putter. He changed his putter for a week this season, but with a knowing smile he called it a “putty” rather than a putter.
“I think I’m close, but I don’t think the ball is in the hole,” Connors said. “I’m working hard. I’ve been trying to do the same things that worked for me last year. I’m getting better. I’m improving.”
Regardless of how Conners finishes this year, he remains Canada’s best male golfer by a wide margin, ranked 39th in the Official World Golf Rankings.
This time of year, from March to mid-April, is considered by many (at least if you read social media posts) to be ‘Corey Conners season.’ His string of results through the Florida swing has been solid for a long time, and his two career wins both came at the Valero Texas Open the week before the Masters in April, where he recorded four top-10 finishes in six years.
“That’s what we’re trying to do the whole season,” Connors said with a laugh.
Commentary on this golden group of Canadians has been following for a long time. Well, when will one of them win big? Mike Weir has long said that it is important to engage in debate more often and that Conners has done the most consistent work within the group. He has two wins, but has long been considered a player who should play more often.
Of course, it is difficult to win on the PGA Tour. Talent is getting younger and younger. Akshay Bhatia, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday, is only 24 years old and already has three tour titles. Meanwhile, superstars like Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy (who have combined to win the last three Players Championships) are showing no signs of slowing down.
“A lot of things have to go your way. I had a really good run with the win, but to get off to a good start, things had to go in my favor, whether it was the weather or my tee times. Everything had to fall into place,” Connors said.
The Players’ 2026 Canadian contingent has seen some turnover compared to recent years. Longtime tour stalwarts Adam Hadwin and Adam Svensson are gone, and in their place are tour newcomers AJ Ewart and Sudarshan Yellamaraju, who have performed well in the FedEx Cup standings this season.
“It’s awesome. Good play pays off,” Ewart, who was a Q-School medalist on the Dye Valley course at TPC Sawgrass in December, told Sportsnet.ca. “It’s really cool because that was my goal when I graduated from Q-School and I said I wanted to get back here for The Players. It makes me want to work hard and get involved in bigger events.”
Other Canadians in the field this week are some of the usual suspects in Mackenzie Hughes, Nick Taylor and Taylor Pendrith.
Like Conners, Pendrith said it had been a “frustrating few months.” He and his wife, Meg, welcomed their second child (son Parker) late last year and were unable to compete in tournaments for about five months. His best performance in 2026, he said, came in his first tournament, somewhat surprisingly, at the Sony Open. Otherwise he was just trying to put together a full performance in a week.
For example, last week at Bay Hill, Pendris lost 10.667 strokes on the field with his putter, an almost comically bad number historically. In more than 313,000 measured tournaments in the PGA Tour’s ShotLink era, Pendrith’s putting performance was the 26th-worst.
Another example of how unpredictable golf can be is that he has only been in the top 20 in the same putting statistic in just one tournament.
Pendrith has had decent results at his favorite course, TPC Sawgrass, including a career-best tie for 13th in 2022.
“The last few weeks I’ve been playing really good golf but things haven’t been great. Last week I was hitting great shots and really struggling on the greens. The week before that I was great on the greens but not so good with my irons. The week before that I wasn’t so good with my driver. I was playing well but I just wasn’t getting good results,” Pendrith said.
Whether you’re a rookie or a top-level veteran, the Players Championship is always a staple event on the PGA Tour calendar. Six Canadians on the scene know all about what to do to make some noise on the weekend in Northeast Florida.
“We got off to a much better start last year in the first few events of the year, but I hope we have learned from the mistakes we have made so far this season and hope to turn things around,” Connors said. “And there’s no better place than here.”
Ewart and Yellamaraju are two of 14 golfers making their debuts at The Players this week and two of seven PGA Tour rookies in 2026. Canadian rookies are grouped together for the first two rounds. “It’s definitely comforting,” Ewart said. … Taylor remains Canada’s top golfer, finishing T13 at the Sony Open in Hawaii, where she was the defending champion, and ranked 48th in the FedEx Cup standings. Taylor did not miss a single cut in 2026. … Hughes is about to make his sixth start of the season. He came into the week tied for 23rd at the Cognizant Classic, his best finish of the year. … Pendris will be keeping a close eye on the Official World Golf Rankings over the coming weeks. He ended 2025 ranked 51st, and only the top 50 earn automatic berths in the Masters. When Ryan Gerard traveled more than 10,000 miles to tee off at a DP World Tour event in Mauritius and finished runner-up, he was off the magic number. Pendrith, currently ranked 66th, told Sportsnet that he has added the Valero Texas Open to his schedule and will play four straight weeks to qualify. … This year marks the 20th anniversary of Canada’s Stephen Ames winning the Players Championship. Ames won by an impressive six strokes after shooting a 67 in the final round, her highest score of the day.
