What to know as the PGA Tour returns to Kentucky with the 2025 ISCO Championship

The PGA Tour is back in Kentucky for its annual stop in the commonwealth.

From Thursday through Sunday, Louisville’s Hurstbourne Country Club will be the venue for the 2025 ISCO Championship. Formerly known as the Barbasol Championship, the annual PGA Tour stop has been a fixture on the Kentucky sports calendar since 2018.

A new venue tops the list of changes this year for the ISCO, which offers a $4 million purse and will award 300 points toward the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup to the winner.

With professional men’s golf only days away from returning to Kentucky, here’s what you need to know to get ready for the 2025 ISCO Championship.

ISCO Championship moves to Hurstbourne Country Club

The ISCO Championship will be played on a different golf course this year. After initially being played in Alabama before moving in 2018 to Champions at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, the ISCO is now shifting to Hurstbourne Country Club in Louisville.

Hurstbourne is a private, members-owned club on Louisville’s east side. It was founded in 1966. The course takes up 243 acres. Hurstbourne was originally designed by Chick Adams in the 1960s, and it was renovated in 2005.

The course will play as a par 70 this week for the ISCO Championship, and is set to feature two par-5 holes, four par-3 holes and 12 par-4 holes. It will play at 7,056 yards.

Last year at Keene Trace, the ISCO had an 8-under-par cut score, which set a PGA Tour record for the lowest 36-hole cut-line score in an individual, stroke-play event.

The ISCO has long held the reputation of being a birdie-fest, but it remains to be seen if these low scoring tendencies will translate to Hurstbourne.

ISCO Championship appears set to stay in Kentucky

This week’s edition of the ISCO Championship will be the seventh consecutive playing of the event in the commonwealth.

It relocated from Alabama to Kentucky in 2018 and has been played at Keene Trace each year since, with the exception of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the setting is shifting from Central Kentucky to Louisville, it appears clear that the PGA Tour is set to continue its presence in the state for at least the next few years.

“I think we’ve demonstrated our commitment. As you come into a state, as you come into communities, you continue to refine the event, or the events itself. It continues to evolve. It continues to grow,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan told the Herald-Leader this spring. “I think this is the most important step in the history, for the PGA Tour, of golf in Kentucky.”

When the ISCO Championship — then known as the Barbasol Championship — moved to Kentucky in 2018, it became the state’s first regular season PGA Tour event since the Kentucky Derby Open, which was held in Louisville from 1957-59.

Now, this continued run of men’s professional golf in Kentucky looks set to continue, in no small part because of the committed sponsorship behind the event. The tournament’s primary sponsor is ISCO Industries, a total piping solutions provider based in Louisville. Jimmy Kirchdorfer, the chairman and CEO of ISCO Industries, is an avid golf enthusiast. In 2022, he was part of a group of businessman that purchased Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, which hosted the 2024 PGA Championship.

Valhalla will also host the Solheim Cup, the women’s golf equivalent of the Ryder Cup, in 2028.

“The event doesn’t happen, the experiences that the event creates doesn’t happen, without having a great title sponsor, a great corporate partner,” Monahan added about ISCO’s role as the event’s title sponsor. “Where it works in spades is where that company is rooted in the community. That’s clearly the case with ISCO. ... Then to have, on top of that, the leader of the company, who’s going to not only activate his employee base, but activate the community around the event, to really pull out the purpose and raise dollars for the community, showcase the community. That’s the perfect formula.”

Kirchdorfer’s ISCO Industries has the title sponsorship rights to the tournament through 2027.

What does the field look like for the 2025 ISCO Championship?

A field of 156 golfers is set to take to the course at Hurstbourne this week in pursuit of victory on the PGA Tour, and the $720,000 paycheck that will be paid to the winner.

Among the notable names in this year’s field are up-and-coming stars like Michael Thorbjornsen and amateur Jackson Koivun, who plays college golf at Auburn. Koivun is the top-ranked male amateur golfer and is coming off a career-best finish at last week’s John Deere Classic (tied for 11th). Another youngster, 16-year-old Miles Russell, is also in the ISCO field.

Established PGA Tour players in the field include Emiliano Grillo, who is from Argentina and lost last week’s tour event, the John Deere Classic, in a playoff. This was Grillo’s first top-10 finish on the PGA Tour since last March.

This year’s ISCO field includes five previous champions of the event: Scott Piercy (2015), Aaron Baddeley (2016), Troy Merritt (2018), Jim Herman (2019) and Seamus Power (2021).

Thorbjornsen — who finished in a tie for 21st last week at the John Deere Classic — is the early favorite to win the tournament according to BetMGM (+1400), Draftkings (+1600) and FanDuel (+1600).

Last year’s ISCO Championship winner, Harry Hall, isn’t in the field this week. He’s playing in the Genesis Scottish Open, a premier tune-up event for next week’s Open Championship. The Scottish Open takes place at the same time as the ISCO.

Among the notable golfers with Kentucky ties who are playing the ISCO this year is J.B. Holmes, the Campbellsville native who was a star at Taylor County and in college at Kentucky before going on to win a pair of Ryder Cups with the United States.

Holmes — who underwent multiple brain surgeries during his golf career — last played in a PGA Tour event in October.

A pair of brothers will also be in the ISCO Championship field: Brendon Doyle and Drew Doyle will both be teeing it up. Both played high school golf at Saint Xavier in Louisville. Brendon, who played college golf at Indiana, is in the field on a sponsor exemption. Drew, who played college golf at LSU, advanced into the ISCO field via Monday qualifying.

For the fourth straight year, the ISCO allows access to 50 members from the DP World Tour, also known as the European Tour.

How to watch, get tickets for ISCO Championship

Tickets to the 2025 ISCO Championship can be found at iscochampionship.com. Daily grounds pass access to the tournament ranges from $50 to $60.

Children 15 years old and younger are admitted free of charge to the tournament when they’re accompanied by a ticketed adult. There’s a limit of four complimentary youth tickets per ticketed adult.

Weekly grounds access costs $200, and other premium ticket packages are being sold at higher price points.

Fans are only permitted to enter Hurstbourne for the ISCO Championship at the corner of Nottingham Parkway and Muirfield Place. Access to the grounds will begin at 6:45 a.m. Thursday and Friday and at 7:45 a.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Parking will be at the University of Louisville’s Shelby Campus, at 440 North Whittington Parkway. Shuttles will transport fans to and from the parking lot to Hurstbourne.

More information for fans attending the event can be found at iscochampionship.com/faqs.

The Golf Channel will provide television coverage. The ISCO Championship will be broadcast on the Golf Channel from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday. The broadcast on the Golf Channel will run from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, with coverage from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday on the NBC Sports app.

This story was originally published July 8, 2025 at 6:30 AM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription