2026 John Deere Classic leaderboard: Lucas Glover tops with Max Homa chasing
The 2026 John Deere Classic performs similarly to previous editions with quality conditions at the TPC Deere Run resulting in lower scores. Heading into the weekend, it looks like whoever leads the leaderboard at the end of the game will have at least 20 points or more next to their name when they hold the trophy on Sunday.
Lucas Glover is the man who set the pace after 36 holes, shooting a 6-under 65 on Friday to back up his first-round 63 to move to 14 under for the tournament, opening two shots into the weekend. Glover has yet to make a bogey this week, cruising through the Quad Cities so far this week with 14 birdies and 22 birdies.
Glover’s tears at John Deere came to light. The 46-year-old is winless in his last five games. On the season, he has finished in the top 25 just twice — a year after taking the top 10 in 2025 — but he found something in his swing this week that has moved him closer to threatening his seventh PGA Tour victory.
Glover leads the field in hitting the ball with a healthy swing, as he picks up more than 7 strokes from the field in his 36-hole performance. He wasn’t great off the tee, and he only had 150 putts made in the week, but he didn’t need to cover too far because of how many good looks he was able to create with his iron play.
Entering the weekend with a two-shot cushion over Lee Hodges — with Zac Blair the only man within three shots of the veteran — Glover sits in the top spot. Last year, Glover cashed in on the weekend in T5 at John Deere. If he can repeat that kind of performance on Saturday and Sunday this year, he will likely walk away with his seventh PGA Tour title.
Rivals enter Moving Day
2. Lee Hodges (-12)
3. Zac Blair (-11)
T4. Jackson Suber, Tyler Duncan, Troy Merritt, David Lipsky, Ryo Hisatsune, Ben Kohles (-10)
T10. Max Homa (-9)
T11. Chris Gotterup, Zach Johnson, Ben Griffin and five others (-8)
T19. Preston Stout, Blades Brown and eight others (-7)
Hodges shot one stroke worse than Glover in both of the first two rounds, earning his way to Saturday’s final pairing and Friday’s 66. Blair was tied with Glover after the first round but couldn’t match the pace Friday with a second-round 68 to fall three shots behind.
Suber has been popping up on the leaderboards a lot as the summer continues with fourth place finishes in his last five places. He is back in contention over the weekend, and will hope to have a case against himself over the next two rounds to claim his first PGA Tour title.
Homa’s presence on the front page of the leaderboard heading into the weekend is a welcome one, and he’s been gaining some form of late with consecutive top-25 finishes coming to John Deere. His best finish of the season is T9 at the Masters, and he’ll have a chance to improve on that with a strong weekend to keep the good vibes going.
The team at T11 has some interesting names, including a former champion in Zach Johnson, two players with multiple PGA Tour wins in the past few years in Chris Gotterup and Ben Griffin and an outstanding rookie in Preston Stout. Johnson had a cool touch on Friday, but he should be considered a threat given his history at TPC Deere Run. Griffin got off to a slow start this season but has made a comeback of late and is positioning himself to be in contention again this weekend.
Gotterup had the opposite season to Griffin, starting off hot with two wins but struggling to maintain that quality into the summer. He hopes this week could be the launching pad for the season that sees him break out in 2025.
The young player everyone was talking about this week was Jackson Koivun, who is making his first game, but after Koivun missed the cut, attention will shift to rookie Preston Stout and the Blades Brown. Stout played exceptionally well through the first 36 holes to not only make the first cut in his fourth PGA Tour start but also to be in the mix heading into the weekend. Brown is trying to make the most of his special temporary exemption to earn his full 2026 card and is looking for his third consecutive top-20 finish on Tour — and eight top-10 starts this year.
Eric Cole was not to be denied at the weekend
After shooting a 5-over 76 on Thursday, Eric Cole would have been forgiven if he put it on Friday and planned to retire for the Fourth of July after several strong finishes in recent signing events. Instead, Cole went out and shot the lowest round of the day with an 8-under 63 to make the cut. It took two eagles in his round — including one on the par-5 17th where he needed to go 2 under on his final two holes of the weekend — but Cole earned the weekend’s time and a payday this week for his effort on Friday.
However, not everyone was able to make such an effort.
Notable players who missed the cut
- Daniel Berger (-2)
- Max Greyserman (-2)
- Sudarshan Yellamaraju (-2)
- Michael Kim (E)
- Aldrich Potgieter (E)
- Andrew Novak (+1)
- Jackson Koivun (+1)
Berger and Yellamaraju entered the week in the top 50 of the FedEx Cup but failed to make the weekend by one shot. Kim, a former TPC Deere Run champion, was unable to get out of first gear and will miss Saturday’s time again. Then there’s Jackson Koivun, who learned a hard lesson about getting the points needed on the PGA Tour, even in an event without the game’s stars. Koivun put eight bogeys on the card over his 36 holes, which is a lot of mistakes around a track like Deere Run. This will be a learning experience as his professional career begins with a missed cut.
