Michael Brennan’s Bank of Utah Championship began with a lash – a towering drive touching 189 mph ball speed that settled in the fairway 354 yards from where it sat a few seconds earlier.

It wasn’t captured by cameras, nor did it garner any attention at the time, but it was a warning sign of dominance to come.

Brennan, playing as a sponsor exemption in his first TOUR start as a pro, ran circles around the field in his four-stroke victory, asserting himself as the next young talent that demands our attentiveness with blistering speed that makes him eminently watchable and easy to believe in.

The 23-year-old former Wake Forest standout navigated his way around Black Desert Resort with admirable precision and eye-popping power. Later in the opening round, Brennan hit 191 mph ball speed. He eclipsed 190 mph again on Saturday and Sunday, the latter coming on a 418-yard drive at the 12th hole. The performance produced gaudy statistics. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, gaining more than seven strokes in the single-best driving performance on the PGA TOUR this season. He ranked second in driving distance and ball speed and seventh in accuracy.

Brennan isn’t the first to break through with a performance like this. He won’t be the last, either. He is just the latest reminder of what’s already here and what’s still coming.

The great speed race is upon us on the PGA TOUR. It doesn’t take a trained eye to notice the trends. Four of the top-five golfers in average ball speed on TOUR this season are 27 or younger. Current Rookie of the Year favorite Aldrich Potgieter, 21, led the way with an average ball speed over 190 mph. The Højgaard twins, both 23, were second and fourth. If Brennan maintained his average from Utah, he’d eclipse Nicolai Højgaard for No. 2 in the category.

Min Woo Lee, 27, ranks fifth. Luke Clanton, 21, Ludvig Åberg, 25, and Chris Gotterup, 26, are all inside the top-20. Speed has increased steadily year-over-year on the PGA TOUR as equipment has improved and the athletes have become stronger. Just five years ago, only eight golfers averaged over 181 mph ball speed. Ten years ago, only four players hit that threshold. So far this year, 24 golfers are averaging 181 mph or more.

Brennan is part of the Trackman era, in which launch monitors were prevalent during the entire lifespan of development, and the idea of hitting it hard was intrinsic to future success, instilled from a young age. That informed how golfers have trained and what they’ve prioritized. Golfers are increasingly taught how to swing hard first, with coaches comfortable that they can straighten them out after.

It’s not diminishing Brennan’s talent to say there are more golfers just like him working through the pro golf pipeline. He just happened to get an opportunity and catch fire at the right time. Now he’s a PGA TOUR winner and a member for years to come.

Christo Lamprecht will join Brennan on TOUR next year. Lamprecht, 24, led the Korn Ferry Tour in driving distance. In his lone TOUR start at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson earlier this year, Lamprecht averaged 130 mph club head speed. Extrapolated over a full year, that would have led the TOUR by more than four miles per hour. Pontus Nyholm and Pierceson Coody were two others of the 20 Korn Ferry Tour players to earn TOUR cards for 2026. Both averaged more than 320 yards off the tee, which would put them inside the top five on the PGA TOUR.

Hitting it far isn’t the only path to success – Brian Campbell won twice in 2025 despite ranking last on TOUR in driving distance – but it makes it easier to come by. Brennan’s win in Utah made that clear again.

A whole new crop of speedsters will come again in next year and for years into the future. Get used to it. It’s a feature, not a bug.