Before Ben Griffin won three PGA TOUR events and played for the United States Ryder Cup team, he was laying the groundwork for a breakout season during the FedExCup Fall.

Griffin began last fall just outside the top 60, good enough to retain his card but with work to do if he wanted to consistently play in Signature Events and majors. In turn, Griffin played seven of the eight fall events and amassed five top-25s to jump to 57th. He played at Riviera and Pebble Beach the next year, kept sharp and bided his time until snatching his maiden victory alongside Andrew Novak at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The rest is history.

Griffin’s use of the fall to catapult into an even better performance the next year has become common since the fall circuit was introduced. Ludvig Aberg did similarly in 2023, as did Maverick McNealy last year.

So who might be laying the foundation for a similar breakout next year? Here are five players who have taken a leap this fall.

Garrick Higgo

The most consistent player on the PGA TOUR this fall, Higgo has ridden an impressive hot streak that will completely change the dynamic of his 2026 season. The South African has finished T7 or better in his four fall starts and he’s carded three straight top-fives, the most notable being a runner-up at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

The 26-year-old is a noteworthy talent. That much was known way back in 2021 when he won his first TOUR tournament. This version is much more dangerous, though. In previous years, Higgo would have one solid event, and then his form would evaporate. In his four previous seasons, Higgo had five total top-10s. He has five this season, and four have come in the last two months.

Higgo had secured status for 2026 via his win at the Corales Puntacana Championship earlier this year, but his FedExCup Fall run is what has set him to break through in a more meaningful way down the road. In the process, Higgo jumped from 99th in the FedExCup to 52nd – a notable distinction. Whomever finishes between Nos. 51-60 in the FedExCup Fall will earn entry into the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and The Genesis Invitational, and Higgo is all but guaranteed to qualify for both. He could be primed for a similar breakthrough as Ludvig Åberg (2023) or Maverick McNealy (2024), who both parlayed a top-60 position in the FedExCup Fall into a career year the following season.

Rico Hoey

The 30-year-old Filipino has become one of the most impressive ball-strikers on the PGA TOUR, but until this fall, he had little to show for it. Most of that blame fell on below-average putting. But the switch to a long putter before the FedExCup Fall has completely turned around Hoey’s prospects.

Hoey was 106th in the FedExCup to begin the fall, on the edge of losing his TOUR card. Now, he’s projected to play the first two Signature Events in 2026, currently 58th in the standings.

Hoey has notched three top-10s in five starts, including a runner-up at the Bank of Utah Championship and a T4 at the Baycurrent Classic. The putting hasn’t been incredible, only average, but that’s all Hoey needs. He ranks second this season in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, only behind Scottie Scheffler. When you hit it that good, average is all you need on the greens.

Michael Brennan

Michael Brennan’s rapid rise is remarkable both in its timing and its scale. Brennan attempted to Monday qualify for this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship back when the qualifier was held in early October. At that point, Brennan only had Korn Ferry status and ultimately missed qualification by three shots. Now he will play in Bermuda as a PGA TOUR winner and the highest-ranked player in the field.

In between, Brennan received a sponsor exemption to the Bank of Utah Championship and pulled off an improbable feat: blowing out the field to win his maiden TOUR event before he was even a member. For how unexpected it was, it wasn’t fluky. Brennan had spent the summer dominating on PGA TOUR Americas, winning three of his last six tournaments to ensure Korn Ferry Tour status for 2026. He bypassed that tour altogether with his win in Utah and will rightly be a favorite to break through even further next year when he plays his first full season on TOUR at age 23.

Michael Thorbjornsen

The former world amateur No. 1 has found his comfort zone this fall, hinting that an even bigger jump might be on the horizon in 2026. Thorbjornsen began the fall at 88th in the FedExCup and has quietly risen to 70th. He’s played every event this fall and made every cut, with a few standout weeks mixed in – T13 at the Procore Championship and solo-third at the Baycurrent Classic.

The standout weeks aren’t as important as the consistency. Thorbjornsen’s ceiling has never been in question. The Stanford product finished fourth at the 2022 Travelers Championship while still in college. After finishing No. 1 in the 2024 PGA TOUR University Ranking, Thorbjornsen was runner-up at the John Deere Classic in his third TOUR start as a pro. Yet for every one of those peak weeks, Thorbjornsen would throw in a few clunkers. Career-to-date, he’s missed 18 cuts in 44 events. Though that has improved markedly this season. He’s missed just one cut since mid-April and has slowly raised his floor. His worst finish this fall is a T37.

Pierceson Coody

Pierceson Coody might pull off one of the more unlikely feats in pro golf – earning his 2026 PGA TOUR card multiple ways.

Coody has already secured status for next year by finishing inside the top-20 on the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Points List. He did so despite playing a truly mixed schedule between the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR. Coody played 15 times on the Korn Ferry Tour and will make his 16th start on the PGA TOUR this week in Bermuda, where another good week could push him inside the top 100 of the FedExCup standings.

Coody began the year with conditional TOUR status and played rather ineffectively with a hodgepodge schedule. That is, until the FedExCup Fall. With his Korn Ferry Tour positioning secured, Coody turned his attention to the PGA TOUR. He finished T14 at Sanderson Farms and T3 at the Bank of Utah Championship, vaulting from 139th to 113th in the FedExCup standings. With a free dice roll over the last two events, Coody might just crack the top-100, not that it would change much about his 2026.

Coody profiles as an ideal bounce-back candidate next year. The Texas standout struggled in his rookie season on TOUR in 2024, falling back to the Korn Ferry Tour after a year. But the former world amateur No. 1 has shown his talent is too strong to be stuck there, easily earning his TOUR card back.

He’s finally shown some consistency this fall, an area he sorely lacked in ‘24. If that continues, Coody, still only 25 years old, is a prime post-hype sleeper.