Former CGA Player of the Year Gunner Wiebe set for first PGA Tour start in over a year as he receives sponsor exemption into this week’s Procore Championship; meanwhile, Colo. Open champ Jim Knous and former CCU golfer Sangha Park Monday qualify for Procore
By Gary Baines – 9/8/2025
After an ever-so-brief hiatus of two weeks, the PGA Tour season resumes on Thursday when the first event of the FedExCup Fall begins — the Procore Championship in Napa, Calif.
The fall competition figures to be more fierce than in recent decades as the number of fully-exempt players from the season-long points standings is reduced from 125 to 100, with those finishing in the 101-125 range at the end of the fall having conditional status for 2026. The top 100 players will be exempt into 2026 full-field events and the Players Championship. The top 70 in the FedExCup going into the fall are already guaranteed top-100 eligibility for next year, but some are competing in the fall to try to land spots into two 2026 PGA Tour signature events.
Players 51st and beyond in the current FedExCup standings carry over their points — from the PGA Tour regular season and the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship — into the fall.
Among the golfers with strong Colorado connections in the field for the Procore is former CGA Player of the Year Gunner Wiebe, an Englewood native and Kent Denver graduate. Wiebe received a spot thanks to a sponsor exemption. His dad, Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Mark Wiebe, went to school at nearby San Jose State and much later served as the director of instruction at San Jose Country Club. He’s also in the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame.
Gunner Wiebe — a regular on the Europe-based DP World Tour in 2023 and ’24 — will be making his first PGA Tour since July 2024 and the eighth of his career. The 36-year-old will be looking to make his second cut on the PGA Tour, having finished 47th in the 2022 Barbasol Championship.
Wiebe has competed in 60 DP World Tour events overall, earning 539,981 euros. His best finish has been runner-up in the 2023 British Masters.
Former Colorado School of Mines golfer Jim Knous made nine birdies in a round of 65 in a Monday qualifier. (file photo)
And Wiebe won’t be the only player with major Colorado ties — but without PGA Tour status — who will be in the field at the Procore. On Monday, Colorado native — and reigning Inspirato Colorado Open champion — Jim Knous Monday qualified for the Napa event, as did former Colorado Christian University player Sangha Park.
Knous, who played his college golf at the Colorado School of Mines, and Park matched 7-under-par 65s at the Yolo Fliers Club in Woodland, Calif., to share medalist honors and qualify along with five-time PGA Tour winner Jason Dufner and Corey Pereira.
Knous and Park each made nine birdies in their Monday rounds. Knous, who now works for Ping, has made 45 PGA Tour starts. Notably, his best PGA Tour showing — a tie for 10th — came in the 2018 Safeway Open, played at the North Course of the Silverado Resort, the same one that will be used for the Procore Championship.
As for Park, the Procore will be his PGA Tour debut. In July he finished 61st in his first Korn Ferry Tour start, at The Ascendant presented by Blue.
For all the results from the Monday qualifier, CLICK HERE.
Also in the field for the Procore, which runs through Sunday, are Denver native Mark Hubbard, Denver-area resident and former Colorado State University golfer Martin Laird, and former University of Colorado golfer Jeremy Paul. Hubbard sits 77th in the FedExCup points standings, while Paul is 131st and Laird 196th.
While fields for fall events can be weak, that’s not the case at the Procore as the U.S. Ryder Cup team is using it as a tuneup for the R.C. competition Sept. 26-28. Ten of the dozen American Ryder Cuppers are in the Procore field — everyone with the exception of LIV golfer Bryson DeChambeau and Xander Schauffele, who is attending to a family matter this week.
For the Procore field, 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