Jake Knapp has already accomplished a lot in his professional career. The 31-year-old notched his first PGA Tour win at last year’s Mexico Open, and has a propensity for going low, with 12 rounds of 65 or better in 2025 — one of which was an ultra-notable 59 at PGA National, long reputed as one of the Tour’s toughest tracks.
“I don’t think I get intimidated super easy by any second shot,” Knapp said on this week’s episode of Subpar. “I’m never scared to hit at a flag. I’m definitely not afraid to play aggressive, attack golf.”
In addition to revisiting the details of some of his low rounds, Knapp also discussed his take on PGA Tour policy, sharing his thoughts on the Tour’s schedule changes. As No. 55 on the FedEx Cup points list at the conclusion of the FedEx St. Jude, Knapp isn’t automatically qualified for the nine Signature Events in 2026, but can still get in to the first two Signature Events after the Sentry if he remains in the top 60 through the FedEx Cup Fall series.
Jake Knapp’s 59 at PGA National had pros disappointed. Jack Nicklaus felt differently
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“Hopefully I’ll keep inside the top 60 going into next year, so I’ll be into AT&T and Genesis, so that’ll be good, but, yeah, I mean, the top 50 is huge,” Knapp told hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “Not only for planning out your schedule, because then you really get to pick and choose what you’re playing and not, you can kind of get into a weird place if you do play well. Not that it’s a bad thing, but then you’re stuck in between — well, do I take a regular week off or do I play seven in a row because now I’m into this elevated event? It’s a lot more difficult.
“And not to mention, if you can just play halfway decent in like two or three elevated events, it’s ridiculous what it does,” Knapp continued. “Now they’ve changed the point structure and you get a lot of points if you just finish like top 12 or whatever it is. So a 10th or an 11th in an elevated event is like finishing 3rd in a regular event.”
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Six of the nine Signature Events in 2026 will not have cuts, and all of them will have elevated purses, making them especially lucrative for players. But Knapp said he isn’t a fan of all the changes.
“You have the one guy who maybe played his way into an elevated event and then kind of backdoors like a 7th-place finish and all of a sudden they’re 11th on the points list and you’re like, what the heck just happened?” Knapp said. “So I don’t know. I don’t think there’s like a perfect system. I don’t think we’ve quite found that, and I think that’s why it’s changing so much year to year. I just think we gotta like, almost look at it and just revamp everything and and really look at what we’re doing.”
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