Most mornings throughout the year, The Cliffs at Walnut Cove is relatively quiet, a gated community with a private course tucked into the hills outside of Asheville where the loudest sound is usually a cart shuttling a member to the first tee. That isn’t the case this week as the course prepares to host the Biltmore Championship Asheville. There have been plenty of carts humming since Monday morning, with only a few of them carrying golfers. Volunteers have been in a frenzy — at least by generally relaxed Southern standards — getting everything in order as the week kicks off.

Asheville is something of an underdog this week. It is a city that has never tried to compete for a place on golf’s global map, suddenly hosting many of the best players in the world. Locals and visitors alike prize the culture, the food, the breweries, and the mountains themselves. Golf has just never been a large part of the pitch for Asheville, not the way it is for Pinehurst or Myrtle Beach. This week suggests that’s starting to change, with Asheville poised to become a real name in the golf world rather than a passing mention.

That same underdog spirit shows up on the course this week too. Journeyman club pro Morgan Deneen embodies what it means to be a longshot. Earning his way into the tournament the hard way by winning the Carolinas PGA Players Championship in a dramatic playoff, he stepped onto the practice range Monday morning before anyone else had arrived, grinding through swing reps while the sun was still rising. The unheralded Deneen is clearly relishing the opportunity to perform on the big stage, determined to make it count. His is the same spirit you’ll find in nearly all of the organizers and volunteers on the grounds — arriving just as early, just as eager for what’s ahead. Like Deneen, Asheville will be grinding for the next few days.

After practice rounds Monday and Tuesday, and a Pro-Am on Wednesday, the tournament proper is a four-day, 72-hole event running Thursday through Sunday. Everything else this week — the ceremonies, the charity events, the community programming — builds toward that stretch.

If you can’t make it to Walnut Cove, Golf Channel is broadcasting Thursday and Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. and the weekend rounds from 1 to 4 p.m. (all times Eastern). PGA Tour Live streams every group on ESPN+ starting at 7 a.m. Thursday and Friday, while SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio will provide audio coverage.

Nestled within a series of wooded ridges that form a natural amphitheater, The Cliffs at Walnut Cove is a par-71 Jack Nicklaus Signature Design (one of a small handful of his courses in the region) that will play to 7,249 yards during tournament week. The rolling terrain provides several natural vantage points, with many hillsides offering clear views of multiple holes at once.

One quirk worth knowing, especially for those already familiar with the course: The nines have been reversed for tournament play this week. The traditional front nine for the members — generally considered the tougher of the two nines, and home to many of the property’s most challenging holes — closes out the round instead of opening it, with the regular back nine now serving as the appetizer.

One of the prime viewing spots sits right between the par-4 10th green and the par-3 11th tee, giving fans an unobstructed look at both holes simultaneously. The weekend rounds will conclude with a dramatic, three-hole finishing stretch that will force players to make critical risk/reward decisions as they fight to shave strokes off their final score.

When we mentioned the Nicklaus pedigree to Jacob Bridgeman, PGA Tour player and Presidents Cup team member, at his Tuesday press conference, he chuckled: “You’re telling me [it’s] a Nicklaus design. This is honestly the first time hearing that.” Bridgeman has played the course several times over the years, declaring it to be friendly off the tee, with receptive greens that should provide plenty of scoring opportunities.

The bentgrass fairways and tees, creeping bentgrass and poa annua mix on the greens, and Kentucky bluegrass rough should favor players more used to those conditions, though the grounds staff has grown the rough to nearly six inches in places — more than three times the usual length — specifically to punish anyone missing the fairway.

While Walnut Cove is not the most severe course in the region in terms of terrain, it does have a routing that features five challenging par-3s; the players will need to navigate several long carries and steep elevation changes. “Throwing in the variable of seven, eight, ten yards uphill or even more on some of the par-3s is a different challenge that’s kind of fun,” Bridgeman said, contrasting it with the flatter tracks — Memphis, Bellerive, Atlanta — that dominated the FedExCup Playoffs this year.

The 132-player field is strong for an inaugural Fall event: 59 Tour winners with 130 wins between them, two major champions (Lucas Glover, Webb Simpson), and a past FedExCup champion in Billy Horschel, who also leads the field with eight career Tour wins. Justin Thomas withdrew Sunday ahead of his Presidents Cup commitment, with Cameron Champ (one of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour) taking his place.

The only two players in the field who are inside the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking also have local ties to the region: Jacob Bridgeman (No. 29, a Clemson alum) and J.T. Poston (No. 38, a Western Carolina alum).

Jacob Bridgeman, originally from Inman, South Carolina, is a member of the seven-community Cliffs network that spans both Carolinas and includes Walnut Cove. At his Tuesday press conference, he called the tournament “sort of like a hometown event,” and mentioned that he frequently played in Cashiers during his Clemson years. As the field’s most accomplished player for 2026 (No. 4 in the season’s FedExCup standings, the only one who reached the TOUR Championship, a Presidents Cup captain’s pick), Bridgeman clearly feels at home in the mountains.

J.T. Poston is literally playing a home game: He happens to be a member at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove. The Hickory native and Western Carolina University graduate will tee it up on a course he actually belongs to, in his 10th year on Tour, having won the Memorial Tournament this year while also qualifying for the PGA Tour Playoffs for an eighth straight season.

A lot of focus this week will be on rookie Jackson Koivun. The 21-year-old turned professional in June after three record-setting seasons at Auburn, then won the 3M Open in just his third start as a pro — three strokes clear of World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, with a 72-hole scoring record attached. Last week, U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker named Koivun a captain’s pick for the 2026 Presidents Cup, making him the second-youngest American ever to make the team, behind only Jordan Spieth. Koivun will play the Biltmore Championship Asheville one week before his Presidents Cup debut, and he won’t be the only PGA Tour University Accelerated graduate in the field: Gordon Sargent and Luke Clanton, the only other two players to reach the Tour through that program, are both in this week’s field too.

Seven players in this week’s field head to the Presidents Cup at Medinah the following week — Bridgeman and Koivun for the U.S. Team, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Corey Conners, Nico Echavarria, Ryo Hisatsune, and Nick Taylor for the International Team.

In what might be the most popular featured group in the early rounds, Koivun and Bridgeman are paired together alongside Webb Simpson. Poston draws his own interesting trio, playing alongside Tony Finau and Ben James — another pro with local ties.

While still in college at Virginia in 2023, James retreated to a log cabin in Linville to reset before returning to make the U.S. Amateur quarterfinals and help the U.S. win the Walker Cup at St Andrews. He turned professional this year after finishing No. 1 in the PGA Tour University rankings.

Popular PGA Tour pro and broadcaster Kevin Kisner, who has a summer home in Cashiers, is in the field this week, as is Eric Cole, a player widely respected for being a tenacious competitor on the course. Veteran pro Jonathan Byrd, a five-time Tour winner and former Clemson All-American, will make his 500th career PGA Tour start this week.

The most exciting local amateur story belongs to Tyler Jones, a Western Carolina senior and the reigning Southern Conference Men’s Golfer of the Year, who earned one of four sponsor exemptions into the field after winning the 2025 J.T. Poston Invitational last September, held right up the road at Waynesville Inn & Golf Club. This week marks his PGA Tour debut.

The other three sponsor exemptions carry their own storylines. Tennessee freshman Tyler Watts (one of the best amateurs in the world and recent Walker Cup competitor) and UNC sophomore Carson Bertagnole (a Pinehurst native and the 2025-26 ACC Freshman of the Year) are both getting early looks at Tour competition as current college players. The most striking is Auburn alum Brendan Valdes, who returns this week for his first Tour-sanctioned event since a cancer diagnosis sidelined him in January — and who was actually Koivun’s teammate on Auburn’s 2024 national championship team. “I’m just super pumped to be back competing,” Valdes said.

Points from the tournament count toward the FedExCup Fall standings that determine which players keep their PGA Tour card for next season. The Biltmore Championship Asheville is the first of eight FedExCup Fall events, which means the golf on display this week carries real stakes beyond a trophy and a check — though the check itself isn’t nothing, with the winner set to take home $900,000 of the $5 million purse.

Much of the fan experience clusters around The Summit, tucked between No. 15 and No. 16, where Bear’s Smokehouse BBQ, Poppy Hand-Crafted Popcorn with a tournament-only mix that supports MANNA FoodBank, and the Wine Garden, pouring Biltmore Winery selections (including a limited-edition red blend called The Caddie), all sit in one spot. It’s a lineup that leans local, just dressed up for a much bigger crowd.

The Beer Hall, also at The Summit, pours from five breweries that anchor the city’s scene: Highland Brewing, Asheville’s first legal brewery since Prohibition; Wicked Weed, known for hop-forward IPAs and barrel-aged sours; Burial Beer Co., twice named the world’s top small brewery; Asheville Brewing Company, the city’s third brewery; and Hi-Wire Brewing, known for easy-drinking lagers and ales.

Elsewhere on the grounds, the tournament’s lawn-chair program, cheekily named “You Look Good, Have a Seat,” offers first-come seating at six different greens and tees. For tickets, parking, and bag policy, the tournament’s own fan guide has it covered. Remember that the entire property is cashless, so leave the bills at home.

Between rounds, Explore Asheville has built something bigger than a tournament promotion. Play Through the Mountains is a scorecard game that has nothing to do with tee times: Visit a participating business in at least three different Asheville-area neighborhoods or surrounding towns, record your stops, and submit it for a prize. Ten itineraries are live, covering everywhere from Downtown and West Asheville to Black Mountain, Weaverville, and the River Arts District. You can grab a physical scorecard at the venue or a neighborhood pickup spot, print one at home, or play it entirely on your phone.

However you spend the week — on the grounds, in town, or somewhere in between — it’s worth remembering this won’t happen again for a year. Enjoy it while it’s here.

This is the first PGA Tour event to be played in the Asheville area in more than 80 years, tracing its roots to the Asheville Land of the Sky Open, where Ben Hogan won three consecutive titles from 1940 to 1942. The trophy players are competing for was built from a tree felled on the Biltmore Estate during Hurricane Helene and designed, in part, by a descendant of the Vanderbilt family — fitting, given how far back the Vanderbilts’ own ties to golf in this region actually run.

More than 1,100 volunteers signed up to help run the week, ranging in age from 13 to 87 and representing 27 states. More than 70 percent of them live in North Carolina, and more than half live in Buncombe County alone. However national the broadcast and global the field, this event would not be possible without support from the people who live and work in Western North Carolina.

Explore Asheville CEO Vic Isley has projected the tournament will generate up to $15 million in economic impact in its first year alone. Some of that local investment has gone directly back into the community. Two $10,000 grants have already gone out to RiverLink and Echoes of the Forest, with two more on the way by the end of September, and a separate $10,000 gift went straight to the Walnut Cove Members Association’s own charitable fund.

Hurricane Helene inflicted catastrophic damage across Western North Carolina two years ago, and that recovery is ongoing. Tournament favorite Jacob Bridgeman saw some of it firsthand when he and his wife came up right after the storm and stayed at the Grove Park Inn. “It was a disaster,” he said at his Tuesday press conference, before adding that the region is recovering and that he’s glad the rest of the country will get to see it. What the tournament offers is attention at a moment when the region can use it. It’s a chance, as PGA Tour event director Nathan Goldsnider told the Citizen Times, to keep Asheville “in the news, in the media, and in sports.”

While the PGA Tour’s return to Asheville is a reason to celebrate, it is important to recognize that this tournament didn’t start Western North Carolina’s golf renaissance; it is joining a movement that is already well underway. Nearby Broadmoor Golf Links has rebuilt from a total loss into an improved course with forty covered practice bays and a lighted practice range. Waynesville Inn & Golf Club is marking its Donald Ross nine’s 100th anniversary this year with a new back nine built in his own design ethos. The Friends of Asheville Muni have been working for years to help the city restore its own Ross-designed golden-age front nine, and the Skyview Golf Association is hosting the 66th Skyview Open this coming Monday.

The Biltmore Championship Asheville shines a big, bright, national spotlight on the region, but the work that spotlight is falling upon has been building for decades. Tournament hopeful Morgan Deneen is proving that exact point: This moment didn’t just happen — and much like Asheville and the rest of Western North Carolina, it was earned the hard way. Hard-working underdogs, it turns out, are exactly what this week is all about.

Special thanks to the PGA Tour for providing media credentials to WNC Golf Insider for tournament week.