4-time PGA Tour champ Martin Laird, a Denver-area resident and former CSU golfer, among 10+ PGA Tour winners set to play in Blue Championship at TPC Colorado; 7 players with strong local ties in the field as commitment deadline passes — prior to Monday qualifiers
By Gary Baines
A year ago, Miles Kuhl of Boulder attended the Korn Ferry Tour event at TPC Colorado in Berthoud — but in a much different capacity than he will for next week’s eighth edition of the event.
In 2025, the Team Colorado member was on hand supporting fellow Colorado junior standout Brayden Forte, who will be his teammate and roommate at San Diego State starting this fall. Forte had earned a spot in the 2025 KFT event through a qualifying tournament.
Starting Thursday, Kuhl — a two-time winner of the AJGA Wyndham Clark Presented by the CGA and the 2025 5A state high school individual champion — will himself tee it up for real on the feeder circuit for the PGA Tour. Kuhl landed his spot through a sponsor exemption into the $1 million Blue Championship.
Another sponsor exemption has gone to Fort Collins’ Dillon Stewart, who likewise will tee it up in the Blue Championship for the first time. Last year within 24 hours of when the KFT event concluded at TPC Colorado, Stewart was putting the finishing touches on arguably his career highlight to date, winning the PGA Tour Americas Bromont Open in Quebec. Stewart, the 2023 CGA Amateur champion, played much of the first half of 2026 on the Korn Ferry Tour, where he had conditional membership.
Kuhl and Stewart will be two of at least seven players with significant Colorado/area ties as the Blue Championship runs Thursday through next Sunday (July 12). The most notable of the local bunch is Martin Laird, the former Colorado State University golfer who has won four times on the PGA Tour — and earned almost $23 million in official money on that circuit — but who is competing primarily on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2026. The 43-year-old has teed it up in nine KFT starts this year, making four cuts, with a best finish of 47th place.
Other players with major Colorado/area connections in the 2026 Blue Championship field are Chris Korte, the Regis Jesuit High School and University of Denver graduate who grew up in Littleton; former Air Force Academy golfers Kyle Westmoreland and Tom Whitney; and Josh Creel, who grew up just north of the border, in Cheyenne.
It should be noted that other “local” players may join those seven when two Monday qualifiers are scheduled — one each at Walnut Creek Golf Preserve in Westminster and Colorado National Golf Club in Erie. The top four finishers at each site will punch their tickets to the Blue Championship.
Laird is certainly not the only PGA Tour winner scheduled to play in the Blue Championship. In fact at least 10 players who fall into that category — accounting for 20 PGA Tour wins all told — had entered the event as of Friday’s deadline. Joining Laird and his four PGA Tour victories in that regard will be:
Jonathan Byrd (5 PGA Tour wins)
Cameron Champ (3 PGA Tour wins)
Troy Merritt (2 PGA Tour wins)
Ryan Brehm (1 PGA Tour win)
Robert Garrigus (1 PGA Tour win)
Chesson Hadley (1 PGA Tour win)
Matt NeSmith (1 PGA Tour win)
C.T. Pan (1 PGA Tour win)
Kevin Tway (1 PGA Tour win)
Numerous other current or former PGA Tour regulars are also in The Blue Championship field, including Zac Blair and Doc Redman.
Redman is among those in the field who have won on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2026.
Eight of the top 10 players on the 2026 KFT points list are scheduled to compete at TPC Colorado, with Redman being No. 1. He and No. 2 Ian Holt each have two Korn Ferry victories to their credit in 2026.
Also in the field is teenage phenom Blades Brown, the stroke-play co-medalist in the 2023 U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club as a 16-year-old. So is Turk Pettit and Braden Thornberry, both former NCAA Division I individual champions.
For the entire field — as a Friday evening — for The Blue Championship, CLICK HERE.
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2026 The Blue Championship: The Essentials
What: The eighth annual Blue Championship, a Korn Ferry Tour event.
Where: TPC Colorado in Berthoud, a par-72 course expected to play abut 8,022 yards.
When: Championship rounds Thursday-Sunday, July 9-12, which are the only days fans can attend unless participating in a pre-tournament event. Gates are expected to open to the public at 6 a.m. each day.
Note: Executive Women’s Day is 10-noon on Thursday. The Folds of Honor ceremony is Friday at 7:30 a.m. on the first tee. A junior clinic is set for 1:30-2:30 on Saturday. The trophy ceremony will follow the conclusion of play on Sunday on the 18th green.
Tee Times: Championship tee times are expected to start at 6:30 a.m. each day. The final tee time next weekend is tentatively scheduled for about 12:45 p.m.
Cut: The 156-player field will be cut to the low 65 players and ties after 36 holes.
Purse: $1 million, with the winner receiving $180,000.
Tickets: Tickets start at $10 per day. For ticket information, CLICK HERE. Kids 17 and under are admitted free with a ticketed adult and do not require their own ticket for grounds-only access. Active-duty U.S. military and retirees — as well as first responders — and their families receive free admission when a valid military ID is presented at a ticket sales window. Tournament proceeds support Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Additional Information: For more information regarding The Blue Championship, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com