This week’s Bank of Utah Championship marks the start of the final stretch of PGA Tour events for 2025. While the remaining four tournaments may not have the same cache as those in peak season, they are make or break for the careers of a number of top Canadian professionals.
Adam Hadwin, Ben Silverman and Adam Svensson are all in jeopardy of losing their status on the PGA Tour. Big finishes are vital if they want to keep playing on the game’s top circuit.
Next year, the number of fully exempt players on the tour drops from 125 to 100. All three are well outside that number on the FedEx Cup standings. Hadwin is 143rd, Svensson is 164th and Silverman sits in 165th spot. It will take a big finish to the season to turn things around.
“It’s pretty simple,” summed up Hadwin of his current situation. “Win or go home.”
His spot in the standings is his worst since he joined the tour full time back in 2015. In eight of the past 10 years, Hadwin has been inside the top 100. In the past two seasons, he’s finished 47th and 45th, not only guaranteeing him full status on the tour but also spots in the newly created signature events. Those are big-money tournaments, most with no cuts and limited to just the best players.
“I’ve backed myself into a corner,” Hadwin said bluntly. “Only four events left, so there’s a lot of work to do to get back on tour.”
Hadwin’s game hasn’t deteriorated due to one particular part such as putting or iron play. Instead, he said, it’s been a few bad swings or a couple of missed putts here or there that have cost him each week. More often than not, he’s been a stroke or two outside of the cutline. Of the 30 tournaments he started, he missed the cut in 11, just the second time in the last decade that number has been in double digits.
“One week I’ll hit a couple bad drives, and it’ll cost me a couple shots, and there goes a missed cut,” he stated. “And then the next week I’ll miss a couple shorter putts, and there goes a missed cut. I’ve been living on this cut line for what feels like the entire year. At this point, it’s like a mental hurdle more than anything.”
The Abbotsford, B.C., product, who turns 38 on Nov. 2, said his approach this week is to focus on winning. That’s something he’s gotten away from this year, thinking more about just making the cut. A different mindset may be the key to a stronger finish.
Silverman is taking a similar approach to this week’s event. He is trying to regroup after an inconsistent season and comes into the Utah Championship with a fresh mind after a few weeks off at home.
“I’ve had few tournaments that were good, but it was kind of sporadic, and a little bit all over the place,” Silverman said of his season. “I’m looking like these the last four tournaments here are almost like a fresh start.”
Normally one of the PGA Tour’s better putters, Silverman has struggled on the greens in 2025. To that end, he will debut a new putter this week that he hopes may improve his performance on the greens.
Despite a career that has seen him bounce back and forth between the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour, Silverman remains one of the most positive-minded players in golf. Despite the position he finds himself in, he remains optimistic about his chances to remain on the PGA Tour.
“I still believe in my ability to win a tournament,” he said, “and winning on tour is still my goal. And there’s also not anything else I could think of in my life that I want to do. I might as well keep putting everything into this.”
Svensson has also struggled this season, missing the cut in seven of his past nine starts, including the first two on the fall schedule. His putter has been the club that’s let him down the most and he sits in 165th spot in the Strokes Gained: Putting statistic.
While all three Canadians remain positive, they can stay on the PGA Tour next season, the alternatives are not great. The PGA Tour is making it more and more difficult to not only play on the PGA Tour but to also stay on it.
Those who finish outside the top 100 after the remaining tournaments will be relegated to the Korn Ferry Tour with only conditional status. That means they must play well in the early part of the season just to have some status on that circuit.
Hadwin, as a veteran player, may have a few more options and would likely receive some sponsor exemptions on the PGA Tour, but it would certainly be a different year for the Canadian, one that he’d prefer not to experience.
The Bank of Utah Championship will be followed by a stop in Los Cabos, Mexico, an event in Bermuda and a final stop in Sea Island, Ga. Those four weeks may very well determine the future for all three Canadians.
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