Nick Taylor has been the most dramatic winner on the PGA Tour the last three seasons, with each of his triumphs since 2023 coming in playoffs.<\/p>\n
But before he headed to the Sony Open in Hawaii to defend his 2025 title, Taylor told Sportsnet.ca it\u2019s been his consistency of which he’s most proud.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly something I never take for granted,\u201d Taylor said by phone before beginning his 2026 campaign on Thursday in Oahu, Hawaii. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty wild to look back at the last three years, and to win each year has been pretty remarkable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor defeated Nico Echavarria on the second extra hole last year at the Sony Open after chipping in for eagle on the par-5 18th in regulation to force the playoff. His Sony Open triumph was his fifth win on the PGA Tour \u2014 far and away the most among this generation of Canadian male stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Waialae Country Club has been a happy hunting ground for Taylor, who has now gone T7-T7-win in his last three spins around the storied venue, one of the PGA Tour\u2019s longest-standing host clubs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although Taylor had just three top-10 finishes in 2025 on Tour, the other two high finishes came in signature events. He also finished just one shot back of another top 10 at the RBC Canadian Open.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the second time in three years, Taylor also made it to the season-ending Tour Championship, where just the top 30 on the FedExCup standings get to tee it up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s close to the top of the pyramid when it comes to reflecting a great year and a consistent year,\u201d Taylor said of earning his way into the season finale. \u201cTo keep up the consistent play and make it to the Tour Championship, it\u2019s a feeling of satisfaction because it\u2019s just the 30 top guys on the PGA Tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the cherry on top of the season knowing you put together a nice body of work from the entire 12 months.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
If there was one point of negativity on Taylor\u2019s resume over the last half-decade, it has been his performance at the major championships. He made the cut at the 2020 Masters (the one played in November) but went on to miss eight major cuts in a row before finding the weekend again at the Masters last spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor then missed the cut at the PGA Championship but finished T23 at the U.S. Open at Oakmont, his best-ever major result.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t amazing, but breaking the streak of missed cuts was Step 1 and I felt like I was borderline competitive at the U.S. Open. There were a lot of steps in the right direction, but each major I\u2019ve played there were slightly higher comfort levels, which is important,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThey are difficult golf tournaments with tough fields. I\u2019m going to enjoy them and go in with the goal to win.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another thing that\u2019s back on Taylor\u2019s radar is the potential to make the Presidents Cup team for the International side, with this year\u2019s competition taking place at Medinah Country Club in Chicago. Taylor won early in 2024, but he struggled through the balance of the year \u2014 including missing the cut in his title defence at the Canadian Open \u2014 and was ultimately left off the team that played in Montreal and was captained by Mike Weir.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said his motivation to play well at the majors and ultimately try to make the Presidents Cup team this time around is high.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The start of 2026, however, has been odd from a regular-routine perspective. With the regular season opener, the Sentry, cancelled due to course conditions and the ensuing extra week of winter-time holidays, this may be the latest Taylor has started his PGA Tour season, he said. It\u2019s been a nice extended break, however. In 2025, he said, his family left for the first event of the year just three days after Christmas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor played two events in the four months following the Tour Championship last August \u2014 he missed the cut at the World Wide Technology Championship before notching a top-20 finish at the Nedbank Golf Challenge on the DP World Tour \u2014 and admitted this long time away has been \u201ca bit foreign\u201d to most of the guys on the PGA Tour since they\u2019re used to being on all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like a long summer break from school,\u201d Taylor said with a laugh.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor said one thing he\u2019s eager to do again is get a few updated temperature checks about the goings on of the PGA Tour \u2014 and there will be plenty to say when the first full-field event of the year starts up Thursday. The Tour just reinstated Brooks Koepka \u2014 returning after three years with LIV Golf \u2014 and there has been plenty of smoke around what the new-look PGA Tour will be starting in 2027 under the new CEO leadership of Brian Rolapp.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 2027 season (will have) some pretty significant changes. I\u2019m curious, but I can only control what I can control. If I get back to what I\u2019m doing and if I keep playing as well as I am, I\u2019ll be on the right side of it,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not something I\u2019m going to tune out because there is too much noise. I like to gossip about the Tour like the next person.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year, though, begins anew Thursday with the Canadian the first defending champion of the season. Taylor is a veteran now, and he said it\u2019ll be nice to get his band back together and back into the same kind of routine he\u2019s had for the last decade and a half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s made a habit of winning lately, too. And he\u2019d like nothing more than for that trend to continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps, however, with a little less drama.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Taylor has been the most dramatic winner on the PGA Tour the last three seasons, with each…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-407267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}