Value Report: Bank of Utah Championship

It’s been quite the stop and start on the PGA Tour schedule since the FedEx Cup Championship, but we hit our stride now with four straight full-field events before closing up shop at Thanksgiving. This is really when the pressure is on for so much of the field, especially when the top-end stars of the Tour are not going to be playing any of these four tournaments. Status is a lot of the talk, but the opportunity to pick up a win at one of these can change the trajectory of many careers, just like Matt McCarty did at this very tournament a year ago. He had already been locked in to a PGA Tour card, but a sponsor’s exemption jump-started it all and exempted him into multiple big events that he wouldn’t have qualified for otherwise. I love this part of the calendar, as we really get to see what a lot of these guys are like with their backs against the wall, and there always seems to be a few really cool stories that emerge.

With Xander Schauffele winning the Baycurrent two weeks ago and it being a smaller-field event, we will just jump right into the Bank of Utah Championship, which is at Black Desert for the second year in a row. It’s one of the best watches we get on TV across the entire PGA Tour, as the aesthetic is beautiful with the rock. And the course separates itself on a very interesting level too from a course-fit standpoint, as it has by far the easiest fairways to hit on the PGA Tour. The wide fairways don’t necessarily reward power always, as the very penal misses do exist here and often end up as penalty strokes, but we saw a pretty mixed bag of players who succeeded the first go-around. With that, I’ll offer up a variety of profiles who I think can really pop at this setup and be among some of the brightest players this fall!

Taylor Montgomery, $7,400 – One of the most interesting players from the tail end of the season and to kick off the fall swing has been Taylor Montgomery. After being virtually irrelevant on the PGA Tour in 2025 through early May, Montgomery popped down to the Korn Ferry Tour and was rewarded with a top 10 in his first start. Whether it was confidence-driven or what, he seemed to turn a corner after that finish, making 10 of his next 12 cuts and sniffing contention multiple times. His last time out at the Sanderson, Montgomery had his vintage putting game firing on all cylinders alongside his clearly improved iron play all clicking for a T6. Montgomery’s off-the-tee game is quite abysmal, but at a course with the highest fairway hit percentage on Tour, it should give him the leeway he needs. Plus, he’s very used to playing in elevation being from Vegas, and did finish runner-up on the KFT at the Utah Championship in August.