Tony Finau’s entrance into PGA Tour’s Bank of Utah Championship gives event a big boost

IVINS, Utah — Ashley Dove, newly named executive director of the Bank of Utah Championship, allowed herself to do a little wishful thinking a few weeks ago when she was asked what the PGA Tour event needs in order to attract more golf fans to Black Desert Resort this week.

“Big names,” Dove said. “The fans want big names. … So there’s a lot of interest in those Utah players, but fans also want to see those big names that they’ve seen on TV, those recognizable stars.”

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Certainly, Tony Finau fits that bill. There is no bigger name in the Beehive State when it comes to golf than Finau, the Salt Lake City native who committed last week to play in the event for the first time in its three-year existence.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the incredible group of PGA Tour players teeing it up in … the Bank of Utah Championship,” Dove said in a news release last Friday after Finau signed up. “The strength of this year’s field is a tremendous reflection of how quickly the (tournament) has grown, with major champions, multiple-time PGA Tour winners, some of the game’s most recognizable names and a strong contingent of Utah players.”

Finau, 37, who is scheduled to speak to reporters Wednesday, before the 72-hole tournament begins Thursday, is a six-time Tour winner who has played on three Presidents Cup teams and two Ryder Cup teams for the United States.

He has not been at the top of his game the past year, having missed all four majors and the FedEx Cup Playoffs in 2026. Finau is on the FedEx Cup fall bubble, sitting at No. 100 on the current points list.

Other top players in the field, which has been reduced to 120 players because of the lack of daylight hours in St. George at this time of year, include 21-year-old Jackson Koivun, who just participated in the Presidents Cup for the United States, and Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Maverick McNealy, Blades Brown and the past two winners — Michael Brennan and Matt McCarty.

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“The reduced field actually came with the tour’s blessing,” Dove said. “It’s difficult to play here. There’s lava that doesn’t show a lot of love. It causes a lot of delays in play, and so a smaller field just makes it better for everyone, especially considering the amount of daylight we have.”

Dove, who was the second employee ever hired to work at Black Desert and the vice president of tournament business before being promoted to executive tournament director last January, said rounds in each of the past two tournaments have been suspended due to darkness.

“And we expect to experience that again this year,” she said.

The field also includes 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover, Canadian Nick Taylor and seasoned veterans Chris Kirk and Joel Dahmen.

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“We’re really excited. This is what we plan and work for all year round,” Dove said. “This is a year-round undertaking for us. We start planning the next year the day after the tournament ends. … It’s such a sense of pride for us to bring an event like this to the state of Utah. We want to make sure that we make it special. We want to make it fun and engaging for our fans and our sponsors. We have high expectations, and we aim to deliver on them, so we’re excited.”

Plenty of Utahns in the field this year, including State Am champ Bowen Mauss

Since its inception, the tournament has been committed to providing opportunities for Utahns to tee it up on the big stage, and this year is no exception. Ten Utahns are in the field, which has to be some sort of record for products from Utah high schools in a PGA Tour event.

“That’s a huge priority of ours, and a big goal. We want to provide pathways to those Utah golfers and that Utah talent, so that they have access to the Tour,” Dove said. “This is a big opportunity for them, and we want to provide them with that access to that possibility to shine.”

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In addition to the PGA Tour regulars — Finau and former BYU golfers Zac Blair and Patrick Fishburn, who are also battling to retain their Tour cards for 2027 — one of the first Utahns in the field was Draper native Bowen Mauss, a Corner Canyon High product.

Mauss earned a sponsor exemption because he won the 2026 Utah State Amateur for the second-consecutive year last July at Soldier Hollow Golf Club in Midway. Mauss is currently a sophomore at Arizona State.

“With our partnership with Bank of Utah, they’ve created a fund that will benefit amateur golfers in the state of Utah and provide access to them,” Dove said. “It is a really exciting foundation that they’ve created to really provide financial support and access to those youth that are coming up and interested in the game of golf that maybe don’t have the financial means to purchase all of their equipment and pay for the coaching and the classes and all of that.”

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Sponsor exemptions were also given to current BYU golfer Kihei Akina, St. George native Boston Bracken of Arizona State, and Zach J. Johnson, a Cottonwood High graduate who was the Utah Section PGA qualifier. A late addition to the field is former BYU golfer Tyson Shelley, a new pro who prepped at Skyline High in Salt Lake City.

Two more Utahns joined the field on Monday via the Monday-qualifying route: Former BYU star Carson Lundell shot 8-under 64 at The Ledges Golf Course in St. George to tie for medalist honors, and former BYU golfer Rhett Rasmussen shot 7-under 65 to get in along with San Diego’s Seonghyeon An and Matt Snyder of Las Vegas.

According to Utah golf historian Kurt Kragthorpe, Utahns are 3 for 17 in making the 36-hole cut at the event — Blair in 2024 and 2025 and former Weber High star Connor Howe in 2025. Akina also played in the 2024 and 2025 events, just missing the cut in 2024 by a single shot.

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What’s the future of the tournament at Black Desert Resort?

The Black Desert Championship officially became the Bank of Utah Championship in July of 2025 when the PGA Tour announced a three-year sponsorship with the Utah-based bank. Dove declined to comment on whether that partnership will be extended beyond 2027, saying she did not want to distract from the two years remaining on the deal.

“We are really focused on just making the next two years incredible and hitting it out of the park for the state of Utah, and then we’ll kind of go from there,” she said.

PGA Tour restructuring is also coming in 2028, as the tour moves to a two-tiered, merit-based system featuring promotion and relegation. How that will affect the Utah event is unclear.

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There’s also the question of whether the tournament will continue to be played in October and fight for spectator interest with the NFL and local college football, or move to a less crowded place on the Utah sports calendar.

Dove said she could “never say never” about the tournament moving to a different month, but added that the sponsorship from Bank of Utah has strengthened the event and kept ticket prices reasonable.

“It’s been huge. It’s unmeasurable, really. These events are not cheap, as you can imagine, and they have supported and stepped up in every way you can imagine,” she said. “There’s so much synergy between the Bank of Utah and Black Desert Resort, and Reef Capital Partners, and they’re committed to being good community partners.

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“They want this game to have an impact that extends beyond just tournament week,” she continued. “So having them as a title sponsor has not only provided some legitimacy to our event, but (gives us) someone to walk alongside us and really make this something that we are proud of. It has been incredible.”