What was an arduous six-month battle with cancer has now led Brendan Valdes back to the golf course. After overcoming the illness, the 23-year-old is set to make his return at the Biltmore Championship. With just over a day remaining before the action begins at the Biltmore Championship in Asheville, Valdes spoke to the PGA Tour about his journey, reflecting on the difficult battle that kept him away from the game. 

“Yeah, January 1st I went into the hospital and found out that I had a 9-centimeter tumor right in the middle of my chest. I had to take off the next six and a half months, something like that,” he said. “It was a long process and not a very fun one, but now that I’m back, [I] feel like I put in quite a bit of work and a lot of time and effort to really try and get back to where I was.”

The last time Brendan Valdes competed in a Tour-sanctioned event was mid-December 2025 at the PGA Tour Q-School presented by Korn Ferry. Shortly after that tournament, on New Year’s Day 2026, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with primary mediastinal lymphoma, which is a type of cancer. He spent the first half of 2026 undergoing chemotherapy and successfully entered remission.

Having spent nine months away from the sport, Valdes’ return is about far more than simply getting back on the golf course. It represents the culmination of the support, care and love he received from his family during one of the most difficult periods of his life. Adding to the emotional weight of the journey, Valdes had just gotten engaged to his fiancée, Rachel Gourley, when he was diagnosed with cancer. 

After everything he endured, making his way back to competitive golf was bound to be an emotional moment. 

“Now that I feel like I am back and I see all the guys out here, I feel like I’ll be able to go out there and compete,” he added. “I mean, it was a lot of work, a lot of time and effort to try and get back what I lost, of course, during the whole process. Feel like I’m ready to compete.”

Valdes, who plays on the Korn Ferry Tour, received a sponsor’s exemption to get a spot on the field. But getting here was far from easy. He confessed that he didn’t practice for five months, and the only club he picked up during this time was a putter to putt inside his home, besides the occasional wedge for a couple of chips. 

Yet, his connection to cancer is old, having witnessed his friend Supra and his sister Bailey pass away because of esophageal cancer in 2015. Perhaps for this reason, Valdes has been organizing a charity golf tournament at his childhood club, Orange Tree Country Club in Orlando, Florida. All the proceeds from this go to the Ian Supra Memorial Foundation, which helps children fight pediatric cancer. 

That said, Brendan Valdes has also revealed his expectations for this week’s event. 

Brendan Valdes wants to go out there and have fun

The inaugural Biltmore Championship Asheville is the opening event of the 2026 FedExCup Fall, marking the PGA Tour’s return to the Asheville, North Carolina area for the first time in 84 years. Since Valdes hasn’t won a single PGA Tour event yet, it gives him a great opportunity to do so. But the question is: what does he expect from it?

“I mean, I feel like I’m sharp, you know,” he said. “I definitely wouldn’t want to take a sponsor invite spot if I didn’t feel like I could compete. But, yeah, I mean, the expectations are just to go out and have fun. I mean, of course I’m always going to try and win. I’m never going play an event that I don’t feel like I have the ability to.

“But I’m just going to say confident and committed and just go out there and have fun. That’s the expectation.”

Brendan Valdes has already won one battle. All that is left is for him to put his best leg forward at the Biltmore Championship.