Which players have most to gain Sunday at Korn Ferry Tour Championship?

GLEN ALLEN, Va. – One round remains to decide a Korn Ferry Tour champion, the top finisher on the season-long Points List and, most importantly, the 20 players who will spend 2027 on golf’s most elite circuit, the PGA Tour.

Entering the week, 13 players had already been declared TourBound, including Sandy Scott and Ross Steelman, who continue to battle for the No. 1 spot on the Points List. That left seven cards up for grabs, and with 18 holes to play, nothing is set in stone.

Blades Brown is the highest-ranked player not yet declared TourBound, and he has been rock solid at The Federal Club, taking a one-shot lead into Sunday.

Who else has the most riding on Sunday’s final round in Richmond?

Cole Hammer (-5/T38)

Hammer was this week’s “bubble boy” at No. 20 on the Points List, and he enters Sunday at No. 21.

He shot a 2-under 69 on Saturday in what he called “two completely different nines.”

“I really got off to a slow start on the front nine today,” Hammer said after his round. “I was not hitting it very well and just tried to simplify things going into the back nine. … I’m very proud of the way that I handled the back nine today and gave myself a shot at this point.”

Some players shy away from the leaderboard when in Hammer’s position. Hammer is the opposite, always wanting to know where he stands.

“I’m very aware of where I sit on the Points List. I think it’s almost impossible not to look at the leaderboard,” Hammer said. “In the past, I’ve tried to convince myself to look away from leaderboards, and I honestly feel like that just makes me even more uncomfortable with the thought of not knowing what’s actually going on. So, yeah, I’ll be looking tomorrow.”

Hammer knows that, for the most part, he controls his own destiny. He and Yuta Sugiura (projected No. 20) are separated by just 12 points heading into the final round.

“I know it kind of looks like there’s a match-play battle going on between us, but we’re not throwing punches out there,” Hammer said. “It’s just golf, and I want to do my best to do what I can. We’ll see who comes out on top, I guess.”

Austin Hitt (-15/second)

Hitt came into the week at No. 22 on the Points List, needing at least a two-way T44 to have a shot at moving inside the top 20. Nothing is guaranteed this week in Richmond, but through 54 holes, Hitt has done everything in his power to give himself a chance.

A year ago, he entered the Korn Ferry Tour finale needing at least a three-way T2, and proceeded to finish T70.

“I feel like last year I had a chance,” Hitt said after his second round. “But it’s pretty simple now, it’s like the ball’s in my hand, I can control it, and the last thing you want in golf is giving control to someone else like I did in Kansas City. All the guys are really good, so if you don’t go out and get it, someone else will.”

He opened Saturday strong, hitting some close iron shots early.

“I put myself close on the first four or five holes, which was great, and then had some wayward ones, but kind of battled through,” Hitt said.

Saturday wasn’t flawless. Hitt escaped with a bogey on the 10th after what he called a “really sloppy hole,” and he caught a tough break on No. 16, where his ball kicked into a poor lie. But he finished the day one shot back of the lead, and he took a lesson from past years into the final round.

“I think what I learned in years past is you don’t have to be perfect,” Hitt said. “It feels sometimes like you do all these dumb, stupid things sometimes in golf, and all of a sudden you make a couple putts, and boom, you’re right there. So I think it’s more of how you come back rather than what you mess up on.”

Does he pay attention to the projections?

“I think guys that say they don’t look at it are lying,” Hitt said. “You kind of know where it is, and you know in the back of the head where the number is.”

He expects nerves on the first tee Sunday, and he welcomes them.

“Nervous, as I do most days,” Hitt said. “It’s a great opportunity. It’s something you’ve been working for your whole life. So I think if you weren’t nervous, it’d be a problem. … I feel that pro golf is like a journey to see how good you can get. So as long as you’re improving and going in the right direction, then you’ll find yourself in a good spot.”

He heads into Sunday not only with a chance to earn his first PGA Tour card, but also his first career Korn Ferry Tour victory.

Barend Botha (-14/third)

How much is Botha thinking about redemption?

“Obviously, I want to win the tournament, but whatever happens, happens,” he said after Friday’s round. “I’m just going to try and play the best golf I can possibly play to give myself an opportunity to win it.”

Basically not at all, and he is focused on the task at hand, a that task requires nothing less than a solo second or a win.

Botha is in a very similar position as Hitt, chasing his first career Korn Ferry Tour victory with a specific finish in mind and a 2027 PGA Tour card on the line.

The South African was on cruise control until a three-putt on the par-3 11th led to bogey, and a poor fairway bunker shot on No. 13 did the same. He got back on track with a birdie on the par-5 16th.

After back-to-back rounds of 65, Botha shot a third-round 69 and finds himself two shots back of the lead. It is an eerily similar position to last year for Botha. Is 2026 his year, or will he be back grinding on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2027?

Blades Brown (-16/first)

It feels like everything that could go right for Blades Brown this week has gone right. The 19-year-old is chasing a fair bit of history at The Federal Club, hoping to become the youngest player ever to earn a PGA Tour card by way of the Korn Ferry Tour.

But there’s more.

If Brown wins the Korn Ferry Tour Championship, he will become just the fifth teenager to win on the Tour, joining Aldrich Potgieter, Akshay Bhatia, Jason Day and Sungjae Im. All of them are now PGA Tour winners.

Potgieter (19 years, 4 months, 11 days) is the youngest winner in Korn Ferry Tour history. Brown would become the second-youngest, as he will be just nine days older on Sunday than Potgieter was when he won.

Brown posted a 3-under 68 on Saturday, leading the field in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, and now takes a one-shot lead into Sunday.

“I’m just playing easy, stress-free golf. I’m just trying to keep it simple,” Brown said after his round. “I love it whenever it’s fairways, greens and then making putts. I think Scottie Scheffler has the perfect concoction, too. That’s the way he plays. You can stripe the ball off the tee, stripe it into the greens, and then when his putter gets hot, he runs away. So I try to make my game as simple as possible.”

The youngster has continued to stay in his lane and control only the controllables.

“I’m just trying to focus on me,” Brown said. “It is exciting, because a lot of the guys – that’s what I love about golf, right? It’s great. Everyone’s kind of looking out for each other. We’re all still out here competing, but it’s good to stop and appreciate that.”

Ross Steelman (-12/T5)

Steelman has been TourBound since mid-August, when he won the Albertsons Boise Open, but he is chasing the top spot on the season-long Points List.

“The exemptions into The Players Championship and the U.S. Open are awesome,” Steelman said. “Having a season-long run of success and being really patient, taking each shot as it comes throughout the whole season, would be a really cool way to cap it off.”

He finished off a third-round 7-under 64 with a closing birdie at No. 18, draining a 40-foot putt.

Steelman had lost strokes on the greens across the first two rounds, but he flipped the script Saturday, ranking eighth in Strokes Gained: Putting.

He has been stellar off the tee this season, leading the Korn Ferry Tour in SG: Off-the-Tee. Part of the reason is a midseason equipment change that came with some help from AI.

“I switched into an older driver shaft kind of halfway through the season,” Steelman said. “It has a very specific feel and a specific point where it kicks in. It’s very soft in the handle and very stiff at the bottom, whereas a lot of guys have the opposite. I like to feel the shaft move through the ball. So I got on ChatGPT and asked if there was an iron shaft that matched the profile of my driver shaft. It gave me the ones I’m using in my irons and wedges now.”

Safe to say those changes worked. Now it’s time to go out, leave no doubt and earn that No. 1 spot.