SFU women second in California; Penticton’s Grady Lancaster wins NAIA event
(November 3, 2025) - Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor is emerging from a competitive golf hibernation of sorts to compete in this week’s World Wide Technology Championship in Los Cabos, Mexico.
The event is the third to last stop on the PGA’s TOUR’s FedEx fall schedule. Taylor will also tee it up in next month’s Nedbank Golf Challenge in Sun City, South Africa.
That event features a $7.5-million U.S. purse with $2.5 million going to the winner. Other confirmed participants for the Dec. 4-7 event include Viktor Hovland and Will Zalatoris.
Taylor, who finished the 2025 regular season tied for 19th on the FedEx Cup points list, has not played since competing in the Tour Championship in late August. Taylor will begin his 2026 season by defending his title at the Sony Open of Hawaii. That tourney goes Jan. 15-18 in Honolulu.
While Taylor heads to Los Cabos with no worries about points or status for 2026, his British Columbia colleagues, Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford and Surrey’s Adam Svensson, are playing for their PGA TOUR lives. Hadwin enters the event 148th on the points list, while Svensson is 165th. The top 100 players remain fully exempt for 2026.
Both players need a huge result to get inside the top 100. Hadwin has 254 points and is 224 points shy of David Lipsky, who is currently 100th with 478 points. Hadwin would need a solo second-place finish (worth 300 points) this week to pass him.
The mountain is even steeper for Svensson, who has 163 points. He’d need a win this week to climb inside the top 100. If they fail to crack the top 100, it’s important for Hadwin and Svensson to improve their present standing.
There are three conditional categories in 2026 — 101 to 110, 111 to 125 and 126 to 150 — and players outside that first conditional category likely won’t get many PGA TOUR starts next year.
The fact that field sizes are being cut in 2026 only makes things more difficult for players finishing outside the top 100. Full-field events for the majority of PGA TOUR events in 2026 are being cut to 144 players from 156 and some fields will only be 132 or 120 players.
NO BUBBLY: Before heading to Cabo, Hadwin and his wife Jessica took in Games 6 and 7 of the World Series in Toronto. Hadwin posted a photo of them at Rogers Centre before Game 6 on the social media platform X with a caption that referenced an earlier visit to the Toronto area: “Game 6. Can’t believe we are here. Too bad they made me leave the champagne at the door.”
SECOND FOR SFU: The Simon Fraser University women’s team ended its fall season on a positive note with a second-place finish at the Cal State East Bay Fall Tournament. The Red Leafs completed the 54-hole tourney with a team score of 42-over par. That was 10 shots behind the winning team from Cal State Marcos. Second-year player Cadence Ko of Richmond paced the Red Leafs with a fourth-place finish in the individual competition. Ko opened the event with a three-under 69 and finished at five-over par. Burnaby’s Meera Minhas tied for ninth at nine-over.
KENTUCKY REIGN: Penticton’s Grady Lancaster, a senior at Bethel University in McKenzie, Tenn., won the individual title at the 2025 Mid-South Conference Men’s Fall Preview NAIA tourney in Bowling Green, Ky. Lancaster finished the 54-hole event at two-over par and beat Philip Kittoff Jr. of Lindsey Wilson University in a sudden-death playoff to claim his second individual title of the fall season.
STRETCH RUN: This week’s Aramco China Championship is the second to last event on the 2025 Ladies European Tour schedule. Vancouver’s Anna Huang, who celebrated her 17th birthday last week, is in the field for the $2-million U.S. event being played at the Mission Hills Resort near Shenzhen in southeastern China. Huang, who has won twice this season, currently sits 11th on the LET’s Order of Merit.
THAT’S A WRAP: The men’s and women’s teams from UBC-Okanagan and the University of Victoria close out their fall seasons at this week’s Firestorm Fall Invitational in Buckeye, Ariz. The event, which is hosted by Arizona Christian University, is being played at Verrado Golf Club.
HAWAII FINALE: Surrey’s Lauren Kim, who is in her third year at the University of Texas, tied for 11th at last week’s Nanea Invitational in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The event concluded the fall season for the Longhorns, who finished fourth in the 11-team event won by top-ranked Stanford University. Kim completed the 54-hole event at six-under par and was under par in eight of her 12 competitive rounds this fall. She is currently 19th on the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
PNGA PICKS: Kim is one of four British Columbians recognized by the Pacific Northwest Golf Association as its players of the year. Kim was named Women’s player of the year. Nanoose Bay’s Shelly Stouffer (Senior Women’s), Christina Lake’s Austin Krahn (Junior Boys) and White Rock’s Clara Ding (Junior Girls) were the other B.C. winners.
CHIP SHOTS: Coquitlam’s Henry Lee has advanced to the second stage of the Korean PGA qualifying school. . .Vernon’s Bryce Barker tied for 16th at the Asher Tour’s Sedona Open in Arizona. Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald tied for 28th.