Andrew's Bahamas Golf Classic (KFT) Preview

Hello, friends, and welcome to 2026’s Korn Ferry Tour season. Our first two events run Sunday – Wednesday for NFL-related reasons, and both are in the Bahamas. Before I get into the first of these, let me just draw your attention to my season-long preview. All I would add to that is that Q-school wrapped up in December, pushing a few players onto the PGA (A.J. Ewart as medallist, with Adam Svensson, Alejandro Tosti, Marcelo Rozo and Dylan Wu) and leaving KFT cards for those ranked sixth (Ben Silverman, after losing a playoff with Wu for the final Big Tour card) to 40^th and ties. In practice that ran down to T34 (-5) and gives 36 cards, though lots of players had status already. Have a look at the full list of qualifiers which contains a few familiar names and see if it alters your thoughts for the season.

The Tournament

Until last year, the two Bahamas events were the Great Exuma Classic and the Great Abaco Classic. Neither is exactly a Classic, though both are, in my opinion, Great. However, they’re named for the islands on which they take place. With the move from Great Exuma to Paradise Island this is now simply called the Bahamas Golf Classic. Nomenclature aside, the differences are relatively small.

Although we’ve only had one iteration at the new track, this is a classic island resort course – that is, the primary defence is wind. I posited last year that we might see reasonably low scoring for a Bahamas event, as this course looked to have wider fairways and be more accommodating than the Emerald Bay course that was the previous host. However, in reasonably benign conditions, scoring reached -18 (262 on this 7,118 yard par 70) which was broadly in line with previous years.

Golfers reaching that score were Hank Lebioda and S.H. Kim, the former winning in a playoff. If you’re interested, Titanic Gambler, very much of this parish, had Lebioda at 90/1 whilst yours truly had Kim at 80/1. So it goes. Whilst both had PGA experience and weren’t especially young, if you look at the range of players going well it is a leaderboard that gives away few clues. I do think that accuracy is more significant than power from the tee, and I think that a good short game and effectiveness in putting are really helpful. What I’m really looking for, though, is experience in the  wind and in island conditions. Proven success at resort courses would be a plus, too.

That wind that I mentioned as the primary defense… yeah. It was benign (for the Bahamas) last year. That won’t be the case in 2026. We are starting the year with potentially very tough conditions, with the second and third rounds likely to be contested in sustained winds of over 20 m.p.h. Keep an eye on the forecast as that has gone up and down, and we might see some delays to play. I wanted to post this early and it is worth thinking about the weather uncertainty that we’re introducing by going six days early. However it plays out, it would be sensible to ensure that anyone you’re backing is a good wind player.

The Field

As I mentioned in my season preview, this is going to be a year when watching the field list will be essential as I’m expecting more KFT-elite players to be spending their time between the two tours. The full field is here together with the always helpful “how they qualified” list. The highest ranked player is either Carson Young (world rankings #174) or Greyson Sigg (Data Golf #136) but by either list there’s the usual intriguing blend of players who lost PGA cards, players who’re long-term KFT members, and those joining from the Tour of the Americas, Q-school, PGA Tour U or any of the other unlikely methods. Of the players I listed in my season preview, all but Isiah Salinda and Kris Ventura tee it up here.

The bookies have made it very clear that they believe the class operators in this field are the PGA “droppers” rather than the other groups. It isn’t a mad approach but I think that this week there’s value in opposing the players at the top of the market, few of whom have sustained form (or they’d have kept their cards) albeit in far tougher events.

The Players

It will be no surprise to regular readers that I’m starting with Barend Botha. I believe that, with Casey Jarvis and Jayden Schaper who are bossing it on the DPWT as it swings through southern Africa, he represents the future of South African golf. I look forward to all three of them being on the PGA tour next year. To get there, Botha needs to be more consistent than he was in 2025 where he had seven top 25 finishes (including two second places, at the tough Tour Championship and the altitude-driven Utah Championship) but also missed 13-of-25-cuts. He finished 28^th on the rankings. His highs are very high, and included seventh in this event last year. Knowing the course and coming in with strong form from South Africa (we was second in a playoff to Jarvis and seventh in the South African PGA) at a time when plenty have had their feet up, he can make a great start to getting his card this year. From the Southern Cape, he’s grown up playing on windy, exposed coastal courses and has already proved that this challenge is right up his street.

Another old friend of this column and another with plenty of experience playing golf on windy coasts (albeit much cooler ones) I can’t look away from Sandy Scott who, again, I think will be more consistent in 2026 and on that basis is likely to be fighting for a card. Born in Inverness and playing collegiately in Texas Tech, he knows his way around windy golf courses. He’s a quarter-finalist in the Amateur Champiobship – at Portmarnock – which shows that his short game is more than good enough for an event like this. His current form is a question mark having not played since the KFT Championship but he was 15^th here last year and that’s enough for me.

Finally, I’m taking an up and coming star who might just be a little too classy for the KFT. If Justin Hastings is as good as I think he’ll be, prices like this won’t be around for many more events.  After a solid career at San Diego State (he finished fourth in the PGA Tour U rankings and 12^th in WAGR) the Latin American Amateur Champion turned pro last year. He was 13^th in Mexico, 26^th in the Procore, 55^th in the US Open and, most significantly of all, 22^nd in Bermuda. So we know that his game is PGA standard, we know that his confidence is high, we know that he plays well on resort courses, putts and scrambles well, and that he’s played superbly in the windiest event of 2025. That’s an awful lot to like. As a native of the Cayman Islands he’ll be more used to windy conditions than most and this challenge looks perfect.

·        Barend Botha, 45/1

·        Sandy Scott, 90/1

·        Justin Hastings, 125/1

All ¼ odds 5 places, 1pt e/w, Bet365.