The Stewart Cink-Zach Johnson duel on the PGA Tour Champions will be a half-hearted affair this week. The circuit's new Jefferson Lehigh Valley Classic at Lehigh Country Club, features Cink, the player sitting atop the Charles Schwab Cup standings, but not his closest pursuer, Johnson.
This inaugural event does have eight of the top 10 in the Schwab standings, but Johnson is taking the week off. While Cink leads the points, Johnson leads for most wins on the tour in 2026 with six, one ahead of Cink. Those two are heads-and-shoulders ahead of the field, as the third-to-last regular-season event gets set to tee off Friday in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Cink, the reigning Schwab Cup champion, has found himself in quite tussle with Champions tour rookie
Johnson. It was just two months ago Johnson edged out Cink in Portugal, which knotted them at four wins a piece.
Two weeks later, Cink won his fifth, in a playoff in Seattle at the Boeing Classic, which Johnson didn't play. Three weeks ago, Johnson won his fifth tournament of 2026 at the Sanford International, a tournament Cink didn't play. Then, one week later, Johnson nudged ahead in the win column by winning his second straight at Pebble Beach in the Pure Insurance, where Cink came in ninth.
That win gave Johnson wins at Augusta National, St. Andrews and now the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links.
"To add this majestic spot to the list of wins is, again, my dreams never got that far," he said after that win. "Let's just be blunt."
But with Johnson taking this week off, Cink will look to reclaim a tie with Johnson for most wins while also accruing more points in an effort to pad his lead before the playoffs.
With three regular-season stops and the three playoff events still to come, Cink and Johnson both can put the single-season win total in their sights. The record is nine from both Peter Thomson (1985) and Hale Irwin (1997).
Other names in the field include Steven Alker, third in points, Retief Goosen, fifth in points, as well as Michael Block, playing on a sponsor exemption.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson duel missing out on the Zach at new PGA Tour Champions event
