Max Homa has been promoted into the field for the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, taking the spot vacated by Phil Mickelson after the six-time major winner withdrew earlier this week citing a family health matter.
Homa had been listed as the first alternate ahead of the season's second major. The PGA of America confirmed his elevation into the field on Tuesday, alongside the special exemption awarded to Dustin Johnson that extended the 2020 Masters champion's 18-year run of consecutive PGA Championships.
The California-based six-time PGA Tour winner has been quietly rebuilding through 2026 after what he himself has acknowledged was a disappointing 2025. His current campaign has produced one top-10 and a pair of top-25s in 11 starts, modest by the standards of his peak years but a clear upward trajectory from the year before.
Homa's resume still travels with him to a major. Two Presidents Cup appearances in 2022 and 2024 and a 2023 Ryder Cup debut at Marco Simone underline the captains' faith he has earned, and he carries genuine major experience: a tied-third at the 2024 Masters remains his deepest run on a Sunday in a major championship.
Mickelson's withdrawal, announced May 5, was framed by his camp as a family-first decision rather than anything golf-related. The 2021 PGA Championship winner remains the only player to have hoisted the Wanamaker Trophy in his fifties, a record that took on its own mythology at Kiawah and that Aronimink will not now have a chance to threaten this year. The 55-year-old will skip the LIV Golf event in Virginia this week as well, with his next appearance still to be confirmed by his team.
Tiger Woods is also out, his absence already announced as treatment continues in Zurich, leaving the field with fewer marquee veterans than the PGA of America had hoped a fortnight ago. Johnson's exemption goes some way to filling the marquee gap; Homa's promotion adds another familiar name to the marquee in a different way.
Aronimink, a 1928 Donald Ross design west of Philadelphia, is hosting its first major championship of the modern era and only its second PGA Championship overall, after the 1962 edition. The Ross greens are widely tipped as the defining strategic feature of the week, with Keegan Bradley telling broadcasters earlier in the week that the iron play required to hold them would separate the field.
For Homa, the timing is unusually fortunate. The PGA Championship is one of the few elite golf events that retains a recognisable alternate system rooted in the official world rankings and the previous year's points lists. Players further down the order rarely see the call from PGA of America Headquarters in Frisco, Texas, but withdrawals at the very top can ripple all the way through the field.
The 2026 PGA Championship runs May 14-17 at Aronimink. Scottie Scheffler heads to suburban Philadelphia as the betting favourite, with Rory McIlroy second at most books following his Masters win in April.