The upcoming John Deere Classic golf tournament will feature the next generation of outstanding young players hoping to use the tournament as a springboard to their PGA Tour careers.
The 55th edition of the Quad Cities’ PGA Tour event will be played the week of July 1-5 at TPC Deere Run in Silvis for an $8.8 million purse with Brian Campbell as defending champion.
Joining Mr. Campbell will be several young golfers. They include:
- Michael Brennan, 24, of Virginia, won the 2025 Bank of Utah Championship, playing on a sponsor exemption, and earned his PGA Tour card. This year, he has two top 25 finishes and made the cut at the U.S. Open.
- Blades Brown, 19, has earned Special Temporary Membership to the PGA Tour based on his fine play already this year. He has four top 25 finishes in his first seven events, including a solo third at the Puerto Rico Open. He announced his arrival to the golf world by shooting a 12-under par 60 at the American Express tournament earlier this season, where he was playing on a sponsor exemption.
- Luke Clanton, 22, finished T-2 at the 2024 John Deere Classic and T-10 the week before at the Rocket Mortgage Classic while competing as an amateur. Coming into those events he finished T-41 at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. The Florida State legend turned pro last June and was fast-tracked to the PGA Tour, where he has had some youthful growing pains. Mr. Clanton will be looking to reclaim the form he had coming into the Quad Cities in 2024.
- Johnny Keefer, 25, a native of Baltimore, graduated from the Korn Ferry Tour, where he labored after his five-year college career at Baylor. He has made the cut in 12 of 18 events, including the U.S. Open.
- Jackson Koivun, 21, is positioned to make his professional debut at this year’s John Deere Classic after finishing T-11 last year while playing on a sponsor exemption. Though he was eligible for his PGA Tour card, Koivun chose to return to college for his junior year. This year, Koivun led his Auburn Tigers to the team NCAA Championship and was named the Ben Hogan Award winner for the second consecutive year, joining John Rahm and Ludvig Aberg as two-time winners. He finished T-23 and tied for Low Amateur at the U.S Open.
- Aldrich Potgieter, 21, of Pretoria, South Africa, has one victory on the PGA Tour after joining in 2025 and lost in a playoff last year at the Mexico Open to John Deere Classic champion Brian Campbell. This year he has two top 10 finishes and five top 25s in 14 starts.
- Gordon Sargent, 23, of Birmingham, Alabama, won the 2022 NCAA Championship as a freshman at Vanderbilt, where he was a three-time First Team All-American. He also was runner-up at the 2021 Western Amateur won by Michael Thorbjornsen.
- Neal Shipley, 25, earned his way to the PGA Tour by finishing in the top 20 on the Korn Ferry Tour (KFT). The Pittsburgh native was low amateur at the 2024 Masters and the U.S. Open later that year. He made the cut at last week’s U.S. Open.
- Michael Thorbjornsen, 24, who grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and starred at Stanford, finished T-2 alongside Luke Clanton at the 2024 John Deere Classic and finished T-21 in the Quad Cities last year. This year, he has made 11 of 16 cuts with six top 25s. He won the 2021 Western Amateur.
Others in the youth category are this year’s previously announced sponsor exemptions Preston Stout of Texas and Mason Howell of Massachusetts.
The John Deere Classic, which includes Birdies for Charity, is a 501(C)3 non-profit organization located in the John Deere Classic tournament offices at 15623 Coaltown Road, East Moline. Since its 1971 founding, the tournament has helped raise more than $200 million for charity, more than 99% of it since Deere assumed the sponsorship in 1998.
