The First Look: ISCO Championship
5 Min Read

Harry Hall chips in to win in sudden-death playoff at ISCO Championship
Written by Adam Stanley
The ISCO Championship will be contested at a new home for 2025, as the Hurstbourne Country Club in Louisville, Kentucky, will play host for the first time.
This marks the fourth year in a row that the event allows access to 50 DP World Tour members and is one of the final stops for players to earn valuable FedExCup points before the FedExCup Playoffs.
There will once again be a nice mix of TOUR winners and up-and-coming stars teeing it up in Kentucky.
Here’s everything else you need to know.
FIELD NOTES: Newly minted pro Gordon Sargent is set to tee it up at the ISCO Championship after finding the weekend in two straight TOUR starts. Sargent, who earned his TOUR card via PGA TOUR University Accelerated, is averaging over 329 yards per pop off the tee so far in his young career – which would rank him No. 1 on TOUR. … Although he fell just short in a playoff last week at the John Deere Classic, Emiliano Grillo is back in action at the ISCO Championship. Grillo’s runner-up at TPC John Deere was his first top-10 finish on TOUR since last March. This will be Grillo’s first start at the ISCO Championship since 2015 when he finished T10. Grillo is the highest-ranked in the FedExCup standings in the field. … Although defending champion Harry Hall will not be in the field (as he’s teeing it up at the Genesis Scottish Open), three of the four golfers he defeated in a playoff last year are back in action: Matthew NeSmith, Zac Blair and Rico Hoey. … Michael Thorbjornsen tees up having three top fives so far this season, including a T4 at the Rocket Classic two weeks ago. He missed the cut at the ISCO Championship last year. … There are openings for 50 golfers from the DP World Tour to join the field in Kentucky.
SPONSOR EXEMPTIONS: Jackson Koivun, the game’s top-ranked male amateur golfer, is back in action after notching his career-best TOUR finish at the John Deere Classic, a tie for 11th. Koivun, who also qualified for the U.S. Open, has already had a laundry list of accomplishments while at the University of Auburn. He has already amassed 20 points in PGA TOUR University Accelerated and, in the process, earned his PGA TOUR card – although he will return for his junior season. … Miles Russell will tee it up on TOUR for the first time since announcing a verbal commitment to attend Florida State University. Russell, who will begin his junior year of high school in the fall, is the game’s top-ranked junior golfer. At 16, he’s already won the Junior PGA Championship, the Junior Players, the AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions and the Sage Valley Invitational while also teeing it up in the Junior Ryder Cup and Junior Presidents Cup. … Josh Teater returns to action on the PGA TOUR as an in-season winner on the Korn Ferry Tour. The 46-year-old is showing no signs of slowing down of late as he sits eighth on the points list and in the driver’s seat for a TOUR card for next season. Teater has one career top-10 finish at the ISCO Championship. … Marcus Byrd is back in action on TOUR for the first time in 2025. Byrd has had a tidy campaign on PGA TOUR Americas so far this year, having notched three top-10 finishes in just seven starts highlighted by a T5 at the Bupa Championship. He also held a share of the 36-hole lead last week at the Explore NB Open. Byrd won four times on the APGA Tour in 2023. … Louisville native Brendon Doyle will make his PGA TOUR debut. Doyle has found the weekend in all five starts so far this year on PGA TOUR Americas and he has deep connections to golf in the Blue Grass State, with his grandfather Moe Demling, a member of the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame. … Another Louisville native – and University of Kentucky alum – Stephen Stallings Jr. will tee it up at the ISCO Championship for the sixth time. He’s found the weekend three times previously. … JB Holmes and Jimmy Walker round out the sponsor invites.
COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 UPDATES: There were no changes to the TOUR TOP 10 after last week’s John Deere Classic. Brian Campbell, the winner at TPC Deere Run in a playoff, moved from No. 59 to No. 28 in the standings.
FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 FedExCup points
COURSE: Hurstbourne Country Club (Championship Course), par 70, 7,056 yards. Located about 11 miles east of downtown Louisville, Hurstbourne will take over as the host club of the ISCO Championship for the first time in 2025 after being contested at Keene Trace Golf Club since 2018. Originally designed by Chick Adams in the 1960s, the course was renovated in 2005 highlighted by a major bunker improvement program. For the PGA TOUR, they’ve switched the nines versus the normal routing so as to not finish on a par 3.
72-HOLE RECORD: 262, Jim Herman (2019)
18-HOLE RECORD: 61, Kelly Kraft (Round 3, 2019), Pierceson Coody (Round 1, 2024)
LAST TIME: Hall chipped in on the third playoff hole for a dramatic victory. Hall, after a 3-under 69 in his closing round, got into a playoff alongside four others: NeSmith, Pierceson Coody, Zac Blair and Rico Hoey. The group all finished at 22-under for the week. Hall stayed alive on the first playoff hole after NeSmith missed a birdie try from 8 feet. On the second playoff hole, all of NeSmith, Coody and Hall missed birdie putts. That trio returned to the par-3 ninth and all went long, but Hall went first and chipped in from about 45 feet. The other two players couldn’t convert their attempts from behind the hole, and Hall had won for the first time on the PGA TOUR. Coody was the leader after the first, second and third rounds. Hoey had a one-shot lead heading into the final hole in regulation but made a bogey after his approach bounced over the green into some rocks along the bank of a pond.
How to follow (all times ET)
Television:
- Thursday-Friday: 4-7 p.m., Golf Channel
- Saturday-Sunday: 5-7 p.m., Golf Channel (4-7 p.m. on NBC Sports App)





