Could Ryan Gerard be the next Triangle native to win the Wyndham Championship?
Or could it be Alex Smalley or Ben Griffin? It could have been Akshay Bhatia if he had entered. Next year, it could be Doc Redman after his all-but-certain promotion back from the Korn Ferry Tour.
“There’s a lot of really, really good guys from central North Carolina and I’m lucky enough to be one of them,” said Gerard on Tuesday at Sedgefield Country Club.
Yes, it’s been a great year for Raleigh-area players on the PGA Tour circuits.
And over the past two decades, Greensboro and Sedgefield have been great for producing home-state winners, beginning with Charlotte-born Tar Heel Davis Love III in 2006 and continuing with Raleigh’s Webb Simpson in 2011, Love again in 2015 and Hickory’s J.T. Poston in 2019. Plus, 2023 winner Lucas Glover played at Sedgefield during summer vacations, and 2025 winner Cameron Young, played at nearby Wake Forest University.
Going back further, winners included Raleigh’s Scott Hoch, three-time champion Love and Fayetteville’s Raymond Floyd, as well as Wake star Lanny Wadkins.
Gerard arrived at Sedgefield Country Club this week ranked 16th in the FedExCup standings. Smalley is No. 25 and Griffin is 36. Bhatia is No. 14. All four have secured spots in the 70-man playoffs, which begin next week in Memphis. Redman, who has two career runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour, has two Korn Ferry victories this year and ranks No. 3 on that tour.
Looking back, the Triangle had a bumper crop of great juniors in the early 2010s. Griffin is now 30, Smalley 29, Redman 28, Gerard 27 and Bhatia 24.
The oldest four battled in juniors and at college. Gerard and Griffin played at UNC, Smalley at Duke and Redman at Clemson. Bhatia turned pro at 17.
Gerard, Smalley and Griffin are among the highest FedExCup players in the field and didn’t need to come to Sedgefield to secure a playoff spot. But Gerard said there are advantages that make it enjoyable to play near home.
“I think it’s more just everything feels a little bit more comfortable,” Gerard said. “There will be a lot more familiar faces out there than usual. It’s always nice being in a place where you feel really good about the vibes and kind of feeling like it’s not too far from home. I appreciate all the people here that have kind of helped out along the way.”
So in addition to giving a shout out to the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes and expressing his intent to eat at Carolina favorites such as Cookout (tray with an Oreo shake) and Bojangles’ (Cajun biscuit and seasoned fries), Gerard has familiar faces on the course, the practice facilities and the clubhouse.
“You play a lot of golf with guys kind of growing up in the same area,” said Gerard, a star at Ravenscroft School in Raleigh. “You get comfortable with them, you get competitive with them. But at the end of the day you make a lot of friends along the way and it kind of serves you well when you get out here because you kind of push each other to continue making the best out of it.”
Though ranked behind only Bhatia in the points race, Gerard picked out fellow Tar Heel Griffin as the local rival he most wanted to beat.
“You see a lot of really, really cool things with them playing good golf and it kind of forces you to get back out there and give it your best, too. Because I don’t want Ben Griffin beating me my entire life, that’s not something that I want. He’s done a really good job of it so far, so we’re going to kind of continue pushing him.”
Gerard got off to a fast start in 2026 with a second-place finish at the Sony Open and a tie for second the next week at The American Express followed by a tie for 11th at the Farmers Insurance Open. He lost a playoff at signature event The Memorial and had top 10 finishes at the British Open and Rocket Classic.
Gerard has made the cut 19 times in 22 starts in 2026 with PGA Tour earnings of more than $5.8 million. His lone PGA Tour victory was last summer at the Barracuda Championship, which used Modified Stableford scoring.
He earned more than $5 million in 2023 and 2025, his other years on the PGA Tour. He won the BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greenville, South Carolina, in 2024 while playing the Korn Ferry.
But 2026 has been a breakthrough year. Next year, Gerard won’t have to worry about qualifying for majors or signature events.
Gerard said he’d like to have the option of playing at Sedgefield next year. Though the state Senate has passed $40 million in state aid to help keep the tournament in Greensboro, the bill must still pass a House vote.
Longtime Charlotte-based writer Ron Green Jr. has reported that the PGA Tour has lined up a replacement title sponsor for Wyndham. With the future PGA Tour schedule in flux, the fate of the tournament, which dates back to 1938, has been a source of speculation.
“I think this golf tournament has been a really, really good staple of the PGA Tour for a very long time. There’s a lot of history, there’s a lot of special moments that have happened here,” said Gerard. “I think that’s something that you can’t kind of replicate at a new venue or something like that …
“I would love for it to kind of continue being part of the fabric of what they’re doing on the top level of the PGA Tour, and based on some of the monetary things that I’ve seen, there are a lot of other people that are feeling the same way and want it to kind of be a part of the Tour for a long time.”
