{"id":47659,"date":"2026-08-07T22:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/47659\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:15:07","slug":"ben-james-eyes-first-pga-tour-win-at-wyndham-championship-shares-36-hole-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/47659\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben James eyes first PGA Tour win at Wyndham Championship, shares 36-hole lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated Aug. 7, 2026, 5:31 p.m. ET<\/p>\n

Ben James leads the Wyndham Championship after shooting a 3-under 67 in the second round.The 23-year-old recently turned professional after playing college golf at the University of Virginia.A victory would move James from No. 141 into the top 70 for the FedEx Cup playoffs.James is part of a recent trend of young players winning on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

Jackson Koivun<\/a> isn\u2019t the only newly minted pro trying to go from playing in the NCAA Championship in June to gate- crashing the PGA Tour\u2019s FedEx Cup<\/a> playoffs. Don\u2019t look now, but here comes Ben James, who backed up Thursday\u2019s 62 at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, by shooting a 3-under 67 on Friday at the Wyndham Championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hard to shoot back-to-back 62s, so 67’s a nice round,\u201d said James, who improved to 11-under 129 and tied for the 36-hole lead with Englishman Jordan Smith. \u201cJust a kind of pretty chill 67.\u201d<\/p>\n

More: 2026 Wyndham Championship leaderboard, Round 2 live updates, tee times, projected cut<\/a><\/p>\n

James, 23<\/a>, has been a stud, especially in the first round since joining the PGA Tour after completing his college career at the University of Virginia. James has averaged 66.9 in the first round and could be on the verge of his second 36-hole lead \u2013 previously did so at the RBC Canadian Open and contended for the title at the Corales Puntacana Championship, finishing T-4.<\/p>\n

\"Aug<\/p>\n

Asked what he has learned from those experiences \u2014 he struggled to 78 in the third round in Canada \u2014 that he can apply to this weekend at the Wyndham, he said, \u201cSometimes you just make golf bigger than it is. It’s not that big. I’m going to do the best I can, play as smart as I can and keep doing the right things. I’m doing a lot of things really well and just going to keep going for the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n

It would be quite a run by the under 25-set to finish the regular season with Koivun winning two weeks ago at the 3M Open, 24-year-old Michael Thorbjornsen taking the Rocket Classic<\/a> last week and James threatening to leap from No. 141 into the playoffs if he can land his maiden win at Sedgefield, a place where he feels comfortable having played there three times in the AJGA Wyndham Junior Championship. James got off to a flying start on Friday with a hole-out eagle at the par-4 10th.<\/p>\n

\"Aug<\/p>\n

\u201cHit a little 50, I knew I had a backstop,\u201d he said. \u201cI tried to hit it 115, I hit it a little too far and it worked out perfectly. I guess it landed about seven steps past but spun right in the hole.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A win has James projected to leap all the way to No. 60 and make the top 70 who advance to the first leg of the playoffs in Memphis next week. It would also likely leapfrog him over Koivun, who entered the week as the Bubble Boy<\/a>. That might mess up James\u2019s plan to move into his new pad next week, but that\u2019s a good problem to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll be in Jupiter with every professional golfer in the world,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cI’m happy to be in the position I am and I don’t really think about finishing in certain spots before the week, I just try to do the best I can and have the most fun.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Adam Schupak<\/a>\u00a0is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Aug. 7, 2026, 5:31 p.m. ET Ben James leads the Wyndham Championship after shooting a 3-under 67…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[58,531,59,1236,1237,66,1302,990,65,68,72,69,193,67,187,8263,62],"class_list":["post-47659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pga-championship","tag-accessfree","tag-pga-championship","tag-sourcegolfweek","tag-sstssportsgolfpga","tag-sstsnpga-tour","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagfedex-cup","tag-tagflorida","tag-taggolf","tag-taginternational-sports-competitions","tag-tagncaa","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagpga-tour","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-taguniversity-of-virginia","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}