Tournament season is about to compress into ten action-packed days around Western North Carolina, with three very different events sharing the same stretch of the calendar for the first time. Beginning September 13, a collegiate event, an inaugural PGA Tour stop, and one of the country’s oldest Black golf community tournaments will each take its turn in the spotlight, one right after another. Here is what to know about all three, in the order they play out.

September 13–15, 2026

Western Carolina University’s annual home tournament, the J.T. Poston Invitational, returns to Waynesville Inn & Golf Club for a third straight year. Teams arrive September 11, with a practice round and collegiate-am on September 12 that includes a 1 p.m. shotgun start, where Poston himself is typically on hand to meet players and fans. The event began as the WCU Intercollegiate, was rebranded the Hummingbird Intercollegiate in 2008, and took its current name in 2019, honoring the program’s most decorated alumnus.

Tee times for the competition rounds — Sunday, September 13 through Tuesday, September 15 — run off the first and 10th tees starting at 9 a.m., according to tournament director and Western Carolina head coach Tim Eckberg. It’s free to attend, and spectators are welcome to walk the fairways and watch a field of high-level college golfers play their way through the mountains. “This is a big-time college event in our mountains,” Eckberg said.

Waynesville Inn & Golf Club traces its origins to 1926, when Donald Ross laid out a nine-hole course later expanded by Bobby Weed Golf Design into the par-71, 6,515-yard layout listed in the WNC Golf Insider directory; the tournament stretches it to a par-70, 6,720-yard championship setup for the week. The move here is relatively recent: The tournament spent two decades at The Country Club of Sapphire Valley before shifting to Waynesville Inn & Golf Club for the 2024 event.

The 2026 field is set at 16 teams. Twelve are returning: Western Carolina, Drexel, Elon, Francis Marion, Jacksonville, James Madison, Kennesaw State, Lipscomb, Southern Mississippi, UT-Rio Grande Valley, Virginia Tech, and Wofford. Middle Tennessee State, North Carolina State, South Carolina, and Wisconsin-Madison join the field after not playing in the event last year.

The field competes for one of college golf’s most unusual trophies: Purple mailboxes mounted on pedestals, a nod to the tournament namesake’s nickname, The Postman. Poston grew up in Hickory before enrolling at Western Carolina, where he won six times and still holds the program’s career scoring average record. He turned pro in 2015 and has since won four times on the PGA Tour, including the 2026 Memorial Tournament, a playoff win that also punched his ticket into the 2026 U.S. Open.

Poston splits time between St. Simons Island, Georgia, and Cashiers, in WNC’s own Highlands Plateau, and he has committed to play the following week in the Biltmore Championship Asheville.

The WIGC Charitable Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) and the charitable arm of Waynesville Inn & Golf Club, took root with the first Waynesville event in 2024, according to Eckberg. It’s funded by Invitational proceeds and run mostly by volunteers, as it builds toward a longer-term mentorship program pairing WNC golf leaders with local youth. This year it funded its first scholarships to Haywood Community College and ran a handful of free clinics with the Western Carolina University golf program.

Eckberg, who grew up playing an accessible municipal nine-hole course in small-town Illinois, says the mission is personal. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like without this game,” he said. After several years of laying groundwork for the foundation, he added, “it’s fun to start finally getting to tell the story.”

September 17–20, 2026

Asheville’s first PGA Tour event since 1942 tees off September 17 at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Design that opened in 2005. The inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville runs through September 20 as part of the PGA Tour’s FedExCup Fall schedule, with a $5,000,000 purse, 500 FedExCup Fall points, and Biltmore Estate and Explore Asheville as co-title sponsors under a four-year, $2.4 million agreement running through 2029. The last PGA Tour stop in the city was the Land of the Sky Open, an official event from 1939 to 1942 that Ben Hogan won three years running.

The Cliffs at Walnut Cove sits in a broad valley basin that gives Nicklaus wider corridors than most mountain courses in the region, though deep bunkers guard nearly every landing area. From the tips, members play the course at 7,167 yards against a par of 71 with a 148 slope; the tournament setup will stretch to 7,249 yards for the week, per the PGA Tour. The club’s European-village architecture and position against the Pisgah National Forest give it a different character than the Ross designs closer to downtown.

Tournament officials announced J.T. Poston, a North Carolina native and Western Carolina alumnus, and Jacob Bridgeman, a Clemson alumnus, as the first two headline players locked into the field during an August 19 media day, both fresh off PGA Tour victories this season. Justin Thomas, Billy Horschel, and Kevin Kisner have since joined them, with Thomas treating the week as a tune-up for the Presidents Cup and Kisner stepping out of the NBC broadcast booth to compete. Amateur Tyler Watts, fresh off a Walker Cup appearance, has also been invited into the field.

Tournament organizers report more than 1,130 volunteers from 27 states have registered to help run the event, more than 70 percent of them from North Carolina. More than 10,000 spectators are expected each day, including roughly 2,000 visitors from out of state, with coverage on Golf Channel and PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ for anyone watching from home.

Grounds tickets for the competition are on sale now, along with parking passes and hospitality packages. There are complimentary grounds tickets for active-duty military personnel, as well as discounted grounds tickets for veterans, reserve, and National Guard members, and first responders.

Local flavor is a running theme: The tournament’s Asheville Beer Hall will pour from Wicked Weed Brewing, Highland Brewing, Burial Beer, and Green Man Brewery, alongside food from Bear’s Smokehouse and other area vendors. Biltmore is releasing two tournament-branded drinks for the week, including a wine garden cocktail served only between the 15th and 16th holes at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove.

September 21–22, 2026

The Skyview Golf Association’s marquee tournament, directed by longtime Asheville figure Matthew Bacoate Jr., returns for its 66th playing on September 21 and 22. The Skyview Open will be contested at Country Club of Asheville (CCA) for the second year in a row as longtime host Asheville Municipal Golf Course recovers from damage suffered during Hurricane Helene. CCA’s support for Skyview goes back to the tournament’s earliest days, a history we shared in our August 26 issue.

The Skyview Open grew from 50 players in its first year to 274 by 1975, and it is widely billed as America’s oldest Black golf tournament, with past competitors including Lee Elder, Jim Dent, Harold Varner III, and heavyweight champion Joe Louis.

New this year: The professional division competes for the Billy E.P. Gardenhight Trophy for the first time, honoring the longtime tournament leader who ran Skyview for decades. Tournament organizers expect around 170 participants in this year’s edition of the event, with up to 60 players competing as professionals for the new trophy.

Amateur tee times begin at 9:00 a.m., with the professional division following at 2:30 p.m. each day. Early registration runs $206 for amateurs and $516 for professionals through the September 11 cutoff; day-of entry is $225 and $550. The field of professionals will play for a purse topped by a $4,500 first prize, while amateurs compete in regular, senior, and ladies flights for gift-certificate prizes down to fourth place.

Country Club of Asheville, whose membership dates to 1894, is a Donald Ross design from 1928 that climbs Sunset Mountain at 6,639 yards and a par of 71, with a 2016 restoration by Richard Mandell that brought back fast, firm, heavily contoured greens. The CCA layout rewards precision over power, with severe elevation changes keeping club selection in play on many shots throughout a round. The front nine is walkable, but the back nine is where the vertical terrain really shows up, and the heavily tiered greens are the course’s real defense. Mandell restored those greens using notes from the original 1928 construction, calling the par-5 16th one of his favorite holes to work on.

Special hotel rates for players and family are available through Explore Asheville’s tournament page, and spectator admission is free both days; galleries are welcome to walk along with any group. Full tournament details are available on the Skyview Golf Association’s website.

Special thanks to Tim Eckberg, head men’s golf coach at Western Carolina University, for providing photos and information for this article.