After 24 long years, Scott Hend lifted a trophy in his wife’s presence at a $2.5 million tournament. The last time Leanne Hend he won a golf tournament in her presence was in 2002, at the Victoria Open on the Canadian Tour, when they had just gotten married. Scott had fired a final round 63 to finish 17 under and pull clear of the field by three shots. In fact, she had caddied for him. So nobody knows Scott’s journey better than her. Leanne Hend opened up about it after the emotional win.

“When you battled it for years, and you get written off as the journeyman, but you really can play, and you’ve won a lot of times all over the world, it really is a struggle to be able to compete at the level you’d like to compete at and to make people believe that you can,” she said. “Hopefully, this will mean that people will look favourably at him and want him to come to their tournaments and include him in their fields. That would be nice because he’d really like to play a lot more tournaments closer to home.”

On Saturday, Scott Hend won the 2026 Trophy Hassan II in Rabat, Morocco, shooting 15 under 204 across 54 holes at Royal Golf Dar es Salam. In fact, he was the only player in the field to card consecutive rounds in the 60s. He finished the tournament five shots clear of Steve Alker and Tommy Gainey. Interestingly, Gainey had entered the final round as co-leader after back-to-back 67s, but dropped four bogeys on his last nine holes. He finished with a 75, and that allowed Hend to close out comfortably. It also becomes Hend’s first title on the PGA Tour Champions, coming in just his 12th start on the circuit.

The couple married in front of the British Columbia legislature buildings in Victoria, Canada, on July 22. A few days after they won at the Upland Golf Club. However, years after that, winds kept coming, but on tours that took Scott Hend to the other side of the world.

Scott Hend has won 18 times as a professional, but almost all of those wins were on the Asian Tour, the European Tour, and the Canadian Tour. All these circuits kept him competing in countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, all of which were far from the bigger stages and, more importantly, far from home. He had never won on the PGA Tour Champions, where the fields are stronger and where Leanne could not travel to watch.

Leanna Hend also said that he was often called a “journeyman.” Despite professional wins across five tours, gaining access to bigger stages was challenging. As recently as this season, Scott Hend was not fully exempt on the PGA Tour Champions. It meant filling the weeks between senior starts with the Asian Tour’s events while waiting to earn his full card. Back in 2019, the year he won the Maybank Championship in Malaysia, he revealed in an interview with Golf Australia that he had offered to play the Australian Open and received no invitation.

“No one even asked me after I won the Maybank to come and play,” he said.

Now at the PGA Champions, Scott Hend opened up after the round, and he pointed straight at the surrounding people. He also mentioned his caddy, Jan, who was on the bag with him all these years.

“I have a nice little team around me- believe in my ability, and kicking me up the butt when I’ve got to be kicked up the butt at the right times and taking my anger when it comes along. I’m just really appreciative of the people that help me out,”

Scott Hend’s primary caddie is Jan Squires. He is a European veteran and has been for years. Hen has always credited him for directing him and helping him through his tough times on the foreign circuit.

The duo has shared a fair share of struggles, too. Hend turned professional in 1997 and earned his PGA Tour card twice through qualifying school, in 2004 and 2005. However, a serious hand injury in 2006 cut his time on the U.S. circuit short and redirected him to the Asian Tour. He then spent the next decade-plus building his record far from the mainstream spotlight.

By 2025, he had won the European Senior Tour Order of Merit, which earned him a place in the Trophy Hassan II.

That said, Hend is not alone, who recently closed a chapter that had been open for far too long.

Branded Snedeker ended an eight-year drought just two weeks earlier

After 2,821 days, on May 10, Brandt Snedeker won the one-flight Martel Beach Classic. It became his first PGA Tour victory since the 2018 Wyndham Championship. This win came after a major turnaround journey in 2023, when the 45-year-old had spent the 2026 season playing on conditional status without a full Tour card.

Snedeker finished 18 under at Dunes Golf and Beach Club, edging Mark Hubbard by just one shot. When Hubbard missed the putt that would have forced a four-playoff, Snedeker walked to the driving range and broke down on his caddie’s shoulder.

“To not have my guard the last couple of years, to be struggling to do what I love, to still have a passion to play this game the way I want to play it and show people how I can still do it, it means everything,” he said.

The win has earned him a spot in the PGA Championship and a two-year tour exemption, a security that he did not have for years. For Snedeker, like Hend, the number on the leaderboard was almost beside the point.