Bridgeman Closes With 61 to Win Inaugural Biltmore Title

By Staff Writer

September 21, 2026

2 min read

Bryan Berlin / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Key takeaways

Jacob Bridgeman closed with a bogey-free 10-under 61 to win the inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville by two shots.
His 72-hole total of 26-under 258 gave him his second PGA Tour title of 2026, after February's Genesis Invitational.
J.T. Poston shot the low round of the day, a 60, but finished at 21-under, five shots back.
Bridgeman heads into next week's Presidents Cup at Medinah as a U.S. captain's pick, riding his third straight top-10 finish.

Jacob Bridgeman closed with a bogey-free 10-under 61 on Sunday to win the inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville, beating Ben James by two shots at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove in North Carolina.

How did Bridgeman rally to win?

Bridgeman started the final round five shots behind 54-hole leader Neal Shipley. He birdied three of his first four holes, then rolled in a 10-foot eagle putt at the par-5 eighth to get into the lead mix. Birdies followed at 10 and 13 through 15, sandwiched around par saves at 11 and 12 that he later called pivotal. A two-putt birdie at 17 stretched his cushion to two shots, and he played the last in par to seal the 26-under total.

Who else contended on Sunday?

Ben James matched Bridgeman's low round with a final-round 61 of his own, good for a 24-under total and outright second place. J.T. Poston went one shot better than both of them, firing a 60 that included a missed 26-foot birdie try at the last hole for a shot at 59. He finished at 21-under, five shots behind the winner. Ricky Castillo also made an early move, playing his first three holes in birdie-birdie-eagle to briefly share the lead.

Player	Final round	Tournament total
Jacob Bridgeman (winner)	61	26-under 258
Ben James	61	24-under
J.T. Poston	60	21-under

Bridgeman turned a five-shot deficit into a two-shot win with a bogey-free back nine.

What does the win mean for the Presidents Cup?

The victory was Bridgeman's seventh top-10 finish of the season and third in a row, and it comes a week before he debuts for the U.S. team at the Presidents Cup, where he was a captain's pick. The 26-year-old, from Greenville, South Carolina, is a member of The Cliffs community and had played the Asheville-area course before, calling the win a near-home game. The tournament marked the PGA Tour's first visit to that part of Western North Carolina in 84 years.