The Daily Drive is a reader supported newsletter. For about $1 a week, your paid subscription can help sustain our full-time coverage of golf.
Brendan Valdes made his last official start at the RSM Classic last November (Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
The golf year for Brendan Valdes is only beginning now, having previously stopped before it could get started. The former star at Auburn who was about to begin his first full season on the Korn Ferry Tour in January never even got to the first tee.
An illness that started as a cold and then was believed to be bronchitis turned out to be much more serious than that. A mass was discovered in his chest and Valdes — just 23 and otherwise always healthy — was diagnosed with primary mediastinal lymphoma, a fast-growing type of non-Hodgkin cancer that starts in the chest area behind the breastbone from abnormal immune cells.
“We were trying to get everything dialed in for this year, getting flights, getting hotels, getting ready for the 2026 season,” Valdes said in a phone interview in advance of this week’s Biltmore Championship Asheville. “I went to the hospital and they found a nine-centimeter tumor. And all the golf stuff goes right out the window.
“It was definitely surprising. I’ve always kept myself in pretty decent shape and tried to stay healthy. It was definitely a bit of a shock.”
Also in today’s DD …
DPWT 2027 schedule doesn’t leave much room for LIV to avoid conflicts
WTGL will pack its inaugural season into tight Nov. 8-Dec. 23 window
Valdes gave credit to his fiancée, Rachel Gourley, who insisted he get to the emergency room on New Year’s Day in Orlando after he had been coughing up blood.
A biopsy led to the diagnosis. From the middle of January until mid-June, Valdes endured chemotherapy treatments, six rounds that saw him have one week on the medication and then two weeks off.
“It was a continuous drip for one week,” he said. “I definitely wasn’t feeling my best. During the week I’m hooked up and I can’t do anything. Next four or five days, I don’t think I left the house. Then I’d started to feel decent enough to where I go out and maybe go for 10-mintue walk for four days.
“And then the five days before I went back in I started feeling okay, enough to work on some putting. Or go to a chipping green for 20-30 minutes. And then after that I’d be too tired to do much of anything else.”
Given all that, it is somewhat remarkable that Valdes is playing this week. He received a sponsor exemption to play in the new PGA Tour event in North Carolina that is kicking off what is called the FedEx Fall. It is a series of eight events through the RSM Classic in November that will help players achieve status — or lose it — for 2027.
Valdes isn’t necessary concerned about that. He’s happy to be back playing again and has a full medical exemption for the 2027 season on the Korn Ferry Tour.
A three-time all-American at Auburn who along with Jackson Koivun helped the Tigers win the 2024 NCAA title, Valdes finished second behind David Ford in the 2025 PGA Tour University class and competed in 11 Korn Ferry events, making four cuts.
He also played in three PGA Tour events in 2025, making the cut in all of them including a tie for 20th at the 3M Open.
This year, he didn’t begin hitting full golf shots until late June and needed time to work on his stamina. But when he played his first round of golf — using a cart — at Isleworth in Orlando, he shot 69.
He shot a 65 at a course near his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and slowly began to regain some confidence with an eye toward competing again.
“Luckily, the golf game didn’t leave me,” Valdes said. “I will say I was wiped out after
