Jordan Spieth will miss the Charles Schwab Challenge for the first time in his career, the PGA Tour field announced Friday at 5 p.m. ET, handing a rare absence to the Fort Worth crowd that first cheered him to a title in 2016.
The list, revealed late Friday, sets Ben Griffin as the defending champion in a field that still includes seven of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Ranking and a mix of rising names and familiar faces. J.J. Spaun is the highest-ranked player in the lineup at No. 9, with Russell Henley at No. 11 and Ludvig Aberg at No. 13. The purse stands at $9.9 million and the winner will earn 500 FedEx Cup points.
Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, remains the tournament’s setting. The club is the PGA Tour’s longest running host venue for a non-major on Tour, and organisers leaned on history and exemptions as much as ranking lists when shaping this year’s roster.
The PGA Tour uses a standardized system to determine event fields based on the current season’s Priority Ranking and additional exemption and qualifying categories. Fully exempt PGA Tour members are guaranteed entry into all full-field events, and sponsor exemptions were awarded to Charley Hoffman, Kevin Kisner, Matt Kuchar, Webb Simpson and Camilo Villegas. Matt Kuchar, notably, is a 13-time Tour winner and brings veteran star power to the lineup.
Ben Griffin, the defending Charles Schwab Challenge champion, returns to Colonial with the weight of last year’s win behind him. The field announcement confirms Griffin’s place among a group that mixes top-20 talent with local favorites and career veterans who received sponsor invites.
Still, the absence of Spieth — who has been a near-constant presence at Colonial since his 2016 victory — and Scottie Scheffler, who opted to skip the event this year, introduces real friction into the tournament’s narrative. Spieth, reflecting on the choice facing him and other players with local ties, said: "It's just a rock and a hard place for myself and Scottie and guys who are local, who grew up here" and added, "There is just such a premium on the elevated events." Those two sentences pinned the tension plainly: loyalty to a storied course versus strategic scheduling for points and prestige.
The tension is structural as well as personal. Colonial is celebrating eight decades at the center of the region’s golf life; at the same time, the Tour’s calendar now includes elevated events that carry heavier points and draw top players away from longstanding stops. Tournament directors and sponsors have leaned on exemptions — and the Tour’s Priority Ranking system — to assemble a field that still looks competitive and marketable even when marquee names decline to play.
For fans and the tournament itself, the question is immediate: will history and a strong mix of top-ranked players, veterans and local favorites be enough to maintain Colonial’s stature when modern scheduling pulls some stars elsewhere? The Charles Schwab Challenge will open with a meaningful purse and 500 FedEx Cup points on offer, but the absence of household names changes the feel of an event that has traditionally been a gathering point for both Tour royalty and regional supporters.
What comes next is on the course. Griffin arrives as champion; Spaun, Henley and Aberg bring top-20 credibility; and sponsor exemptions give Colonial marquee names with deep ties to the Tour. But the larger question — whether Colonial’s eight-decade legacy will sustainably counter the Tour’s new priorities for top players — will play out this week in Fort Worth and over the seasons to come.
