Boeing Classic 2026 Saves Its Hawk for Sunday

Nobody is cut loose before Sunday

The official tournament information lists 78 players in a 54-hole, no-cut stroke-play event. Barring a withdrawal, there is no Saturday-night dividing line between golfers who stay and golfers who pack. Position still matters, of course, but the shape is gentler: three rounds for the field, then one complete leaderboard. The event is a PGA Tour Champions stop for golfers age 50 and older, and the 2026 edition is its 21st.

The setting supplies its own drama without a manufactured elimination day. The Club at Snoqualmie Ridge describes itself as Washington's only Jack Nicklaus Signature Design. The tournament's course page lists a par of 72 and 7,264 yards, with fir-lined fairways, water and Cascade views. Beside the par-4 14th, a hospitality area looks over a feature called Bear's Canyon. Even the proper nouns have elevation.

Sunday starts at eight and gathers speed slowly

Gates open at 8 a.m. Pacific and the final round begins at 9. Seahawks Village is scheduled from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Taima's window runs from noon to 2. Golf Channel joins from 2 to 4 p.m., the same hour the organizer expects play to conclude. The flyover remains explicitly tentative. After the last hole, the official schedule calls for the trophy presentation on the 18th green.

The August 15 card had its own neighborly clutter. The same timetable paired the second round with Seahawks Village, a noon to 1:30 p.m. autograph session with Cliff Avril and a 2 p.m. First Tee Seattle Putting Championship. None of that changed the standings. It did make the course feel less like a sealed workplace, which is worth noticing.

A television window covers the finish, not every shot from the first tee. The useful companion is a live board. GolfPost's Boeing Classic leaderboard was updating during the second round on August 15 and will move again. Freezing one mid-round number here would turn a live thing into old wallpaper. Better to let the scorecard breathe.

A twenty-dollar gate opens onto a very big course

For an in-person Sunday, single-day grounds admission is listed at $20. Children 14 and younger enter free with a ticketed adult. The same page offers access to the Canyon Club by the 14th hole for $40, while a separate lounge sits beside the 18th green. Those are two different ways to watch: one beside the canyon, one waiting where every score eventually arrives.

The spectator guide puts the designated autograph area near the 18th green after each round. That is a small but sensible placement. Golfers finish their work, spectators do not have to guess which rope to hover beside, and a child with a blank cap has somewhere definite to stand. The same guide also asks guests to keep autograph requests to that zone rather than pursue players around the course. Courtesy gets a map.

The bus, the snack and the borrowed clubs

Four days before the final round, First Tee Greater Seattle invited members age 6 to 18 to a tournament field trip. The August 11 outing was free, with optional bus transportation; the program suggested a $10 contribution for buses, snacks and a golf clinic. Its cheerful instruction was practical rather than grand: no clubs were needed. That is the humane detail a purse figure cannot hold. Somebody thought about the ride, the snack and the awkward question of whether a beginner owns equipment.

First Tee Greater Seattle and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health are the event's named charitable beneficiaries. The tournament says it has raised more than $12 million for Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and other local charities since it began in 2005. The Seattle Seahawks' event announcement repeats that cumulative figure and notes the team's founding role. The $2.3 million competitive purse is substantial. The longer-running community total deserves the wider frame.

What remains unsettled

The winner is not known in advance, and neither is the final order. A published payout schedule assigns $345,000 to first place, but it cannot attach a name until Sunday. The flyover may happen; the organizer still calls it tentative. Weather and pace can also alter a live outdoor event, so a plan should have a little flex in it. Uncertainty is not a hole in the guide. It is the honest edge of covering something before the final putt.

By late Sunday afternoon, the score will settle and the trophy will have an owner. Until then, the tournament is best understood through the details around the leaderboard: every player gets a scheduled third round, children can enter with an adult at no charge, beginners were told to leave the clubs at home, and a hawk has a two-hour appointment. That combination is hard not to like. It lets elite golf remain exacting without becoming stiff.