Where Are They Now: The Best Competitors in Big Break History

If you were a golf fan in the 2000s and early 2010s and you had Golf Channel, you watched Big Break. You could not help it. It was golf's version of Survivor. A bunch of hungry professional golfers competing in skills challenges, getting eliminated one by one, all of them chasing a sponsor exemption into a real tournament that could change the entire trajectory of their career. It ran for 23 seasons from 2003 to 2015 and it produced some of the most entertaining golf television ever made.
And here is the thing that most people forget about it. The show actually worked. Some of the people who competed on Big Break went on to win on the PGA Tour, the LPGA Tour, and the Champions Tour. Real wins. Real careers. Built on a foundation that started with a reality show on a cable golf channel.

The show is coming back in August 2026 in partnership with Good Good Golf, which is one of the most interesting media stories in golf right now. But before the new era begins, let us look back at the best competitors the original series ever produced and where they ended up.

Tony Finau — Big Break Disney Golf, 2009

This is the story that makes every other Big Break success story look small in comparison.

In 2009 a 19-year-old kid from Salt Lake City named Tony Finau showed up to Big Break Disney Golf with his brother Gipper. He had never attended college. He turned professional at 17 after turning down a basketball scholarship. He was grinding on mini-tours, trying to find a way onto a real tour, and Big Break represented one of the most visible platforms available to a young golfer with no status and no pathway.

He made it all the way to the championship match before losing to Mike Perez, brother of Pat Perez, on the 19th hole. Runner-up. So close.

Then he went back to the mini-tours and kept grinding. He won the Hall of Fame Classic on the National Pro Tour in 2012. He got onto the Web.com Tour in 2014 and won the Stonebrae Classic. He earned his PGA Tour card. And in March 2016, seven years after losing a Big Break final, Tony Finau won his first PGA Tour event at the Puerto Rico Open in a playoff.
What came after that is one of the most discussed careers in modern professional golf. Finau spent years as one of the most talented players on tour who could not seem to get over the line. Top tens everywhere. Major contention constantly. The wins would not come. And then they did. He won five times on the PGA Tour from 2021 to 2023. He made Ryder Cup teams. He finished in the top ten of half of his first twenty major appearances. He earned over $60 million in career prize money.
He is the best golfer Big Break ever produced and it is not particularly close. He is also dealing with the aftermath of an off-season knee surgery that affected his 2025 season significantly, slipping outside the top 100 in the world for the first time in years. But anyone who has watched Tony Finau over a long enough timeline knows that writing him off is a mistake. The talent has always been there.

Tommy Gainey — Big Break USA vs Europe and Big Break Reunion, 2007 winner

Tommy Gainey is one of the most beloved characters the show ever produced and the reason has nothing to do with his golf and everything to do with who he is as a person.

He goes by Two Gloves. You already know why if you have read the Aaron Rai article we published recently, and yes, the connection there is genuinely one of the better footnotes in golf history. Two gloves as a signature on the PGA Tour is rare and when you have two guys doing it at the highest level of the game it says something interesting about the golfers who march to their own drum.

Gainey appeared in Big Break USA vs Europe in 2005 and came back to win Big Break Reunion in 2007, defeating Ashley Gomes in the finale. He earned his PGA Tour card through Q-School the same year and spent the next several seasons bouncing between the PGA Tour and what was then the Nationwide Tour. Then in 2010 he won twice on the Nationwide Tour and earned his full PGA Tour card. Two years later he won the McGladrey Classic at Hilton Head, now known as the RSM Classic, for his first and only PGA Tour win.

After that it got harder. He lost his Korn Ferry Tour card after the 2013-14 season and spent years grinding to get it back. He won the Korn Ferry Tour's Bahamas event in 2020 but never fully re-established himself at the top level.
Then he turned 50 in 2025 and did something remarkable. He Monday qualified into the Furyk and Friends event on PGA Tour Champions and won it outright to earn his full senior tour card. He was named PGA Tour Champions Rookie of the Year for 2025. And then, in one of the most genuinely touching stories in professional golf this year, he voluntarily withdrew from the Bahamas Korn Ferry Tour event in January 2026 so that a younger pro could have his spot. He had the exemption as a past champion. It was his last year to use it. He gave it away.

That is Tommy Gainey. The guy has won on the Korn Ferry Tour, the PGA Tour, and the Champions Tour in a career that has had more valleys than peaks. And the most memorable thing he did in 2026 was give someone else a chance.

Matt Every — Big Break Mesquite, Season 8

Matt Every was eliminated in the second episode of his Big Break season. Second episode. He did not even make it deep into the competition. By the logic of the show he was a failure.

Then he went away and did the work for eight years. Eight years of grinding between tours, bouncing between status levels, never quite getting it to click for long enough to stick at the PGA Tour level. And then he arrived at Bay Hill in Orlando in 2014 for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

He won. In his 157th PGA Tour start.

Then he came back to Bay Hill in 2015 and won again. Back to back Arnold Palmer Invitational titles. In the same market where Tiger Woods essentially grew up playing golf and where the AP Invitational is treated as something close to a major by the Orlando golf community. Matt Every, eliminated in episode two of Big Break, won one of the most prestigious non-major events on the PGA Tour two years in a row.

His career has been complicated since then by well-documented personal struggles including a marijuana exemption situation in 2019 that resulted in a suspension. He has been open about those challenges. He continues to compete. But those two wins at Bay Hill will always be there and the story of how far he had to travel to get there is one of the better underdog narratives the show produced.

Wesley Bryan — Big Break The Palm Beaches, 2015

Wesley Bryan showed up to the final season of Big Break as one half of the Bryan Brothers trick shot duo along with his older brother George. They had a YouTube following built around spectacular trick shots and entertainment golf. They were not taken entirely seriously as legitimate competitive threats by some in the field.

Wesley got eliminated in the third episode when Chad Pfeifer hit one of the most clutch shots in the show's history to send him home. Not even a top three finish in the competition.

Two years later he won the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town. On the PGA Tour. The same event Matt Fitzpatrick has now won twice and where he beat Scottie Scheffler in a playoff this year. Wesley Bryan won there in 2017 after winning three times on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2016 to earn his card.

He and George have continued to build the Bryan Bros Golf YouTube channel which now has over 800,000 subscribers. Wesley has remained active on the PGA Tour with limited success since 2017 but the win is there and the career it represents is genuine. The trick shot kid who got eliminated early from Big Break went on to win on the PGA Tour. That is a good story.

Richy Werenski — Big Break The Palm Beaches, 2015 winner

Richy Werenski won the final season of Big Break in 2015 and then did exactly what you hope a Big Break champion does. He took the opportunity, built on it, and got to the PGA Tour within two years.

His moment came at the 2020 Barracuda Championship where he holed a flop shot from the fairway on the par four sixteenth for an eagle and birdied the last to win by a single point under the Modified Stableford scoring system. It was the kind of clutch performance that reminded everyone watching why the Barracuda, with its unusual scoring format, creates moments that stroke play events rarely produce.

He has had a difficult time holding status since then but the win is real and the career path from Big Break to PGA Tour champion in five years is exactly the trajectory the show was designed to create.

Ryann O'Toole — Big Break Sandals, 2010

The women's side of Big Break produced careers too and Ryann O'Toole is the best example of how the show worked for female competitors as well as male ones.

O'Toole competed on Big Break Sandals in 2010 and used the platform and the opportunity it created to launch a professional career that has now spanned over a decade on the LPGA Tour. She was a Captain's Pick for the 2011 Solheim Cup as a rookie, one of the most remarkable ways to start an LPGA career imaginable. She has won on the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour, has four Epson Tour wins to her name, and is still competing at the highest level of women's professional golf in 2026, with a top ten at the Chevron Championship this April and consistent results throughout the season.

She is the best example the women's side of Big Break produced and her longevity on tour is a testament to a game that was genuine long before the cameras ever showed up.

Chad Pfeifer — Big Break The Palm Beaches, 2015

This is the one that is not about PGA Tour wins or LPGA careers and it might be the most important story Big Break ever told.

Chad Pfeifer was an Iraq War veteran who lost his left leg below the knee as the result of an IED explosion. He showed up to the final season of Big Break in 2015 and proceeded to eliminate four consecutive players in four consecutive episodes. The producers gave him a nickname. Corporal Clutch. It stuck because it was accurate.

He did not win the season. Richy Werenski did. But what Pfeifer did was demonstrate on national television that adaptive golf is real, that the competitive instincts that define a great player do not disappear with a limb, and that the game is bigger and more inclusive than most people had ever been asked to consider.

He has spent the years since becoming one of the most visible advocates for adaptive golf in America. He finished tied for seventh at the 2024 US Adaptive Open, shooting rounds of 68, 75, and 71. He is still competing. Still clutch. His Big Break run is one of the most genuinely moving stretches of television the sport has ever produced and it holds up completely when you watch it back.

The Show is Coming Back and It Actually Matters

Big Break is returning in August 2026 in partnership with Good Good Golf on Golf Channel and the format feels right for this moment in the sport.

Good Good has built one of the most engaged golf audiences in the world through YouTube and social media. The show is being filmed at Horseshoe Bay Resort west of Austin, Texas. The winner receives a sponsor exemption into the PGA Tour's Good Good Championship in November at Omni Barton Creek in Austin. Good Good members Brad Dalke and Sean Walsh are confirmed competitors. Matt Scharff is co-hosting alongside Big Break winner Blair O'Neal. Bubbie Broders and Garrett Clark serve as non-playing team captains.

The Glass Break and Flop Wall competitions, two of the most iconic skills challenges from the original series, are both coming back.

Here is why this matters beyond nostalgia. The original Big Break launched in 2003 and ran until 2015 and in that time it created a pipeline that took genuinely talented but underexposed golfers and put them in front of an audience that had never heard of them. Tony Finau lost his Big Break final and became a six-time PGA Tour winner. Tommy Gainey won his Big Break season and eventually won on the PGA Tour and Champions Tour. Matt Every got eliminated in episode two and went on to win back to back Arnold Palmer Invitationals. The show worked because the talent was real.

The Good Good version brings a different audience and a different energy. The creators involved have built something genuinely powerful in the golf content space and their viewers care about competitive golf in a way that the original Golf Channel audience did. A talented unknown who puts together a run on Big Break x Good Good in August 2026 and earns that PGA Tour sponsor exemption in November is going to be playing in front of one of the most engaged golf audiences in the world.

Somewhere out there right now is the next Tony Finau. The next Tommy Gainey. The next competitor who gets eliminated in episode two and then wins a major tour event eight years later.

Big Break has a track record of finding those people. It is good to have it back.

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