It's New Years Eve day, December 31,2025, all the promise of 2026, 18 hours away, and wherever you are, and however you are feeling, I wish us all firstly a healthy new year, for without our health, all the rest doesn't matter. If you can have a prosperous one, that would be a bonus, but to have a loving one would be priceless.
Here's a look at 4 golfers and one honourable mention who will begin 2026 full of hope after crushing defeat who have made a comeback, and the loving support they have had is a big reason why.
There are few sports in the world that can take you from a soaring high to a crushing low in a career, a season or even a round like golf.
Years of hard work can be fulfilled or falter on one putt and here they are, having risen from the depths in the 2025 season and now have the opportunity to fly ever higher on the Race to Dubai in 2026.
Zander Lombard
A joint winner of Qualifying School Final Stage in 2018 and outright winner of the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit in 2019, Lombard had amassed seven runner-up finishes on the DP World Tour by the summer of 2024.
But during a three-a-side game of padel with his wife Kelsey, caddie and some friends, Lombard went up for a smash and when he came down his left knee “snapped – like a gunshot”.
An MRI scan and consultation with the doctor of Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich revealed an anterior cruciate ligament rupture and medial meniscus tear - Lombard's season was over in June and he would not return for seven months.
“My wife had to get me dressed for at least six weeks, I was in a brace and two crutches," he said. "Then on crutches until 12 weeks and then one crutch for another four. So it was 15, 16 weeks of constant nurturing from her and your mind just blanks out the bad memories.
“It was tough on the whole but there were some highlights in between. Little goals of getting off the crutches, learning how to walk again. Those little things keep me going."
An understandably difficult 2025 season saw him heading back to the Q School but once there he would win it for the second time in his career in spectacular fashion.
He broke 65 four times in Tarragona en route to a -37 under par total and remarkable 13-shot victory, sealing his place back on Tour.
James Morrison
A Challenge Tour graduate in 2009 who won in his rookie season, 2025 is not the first time that the Englishman has had to stage a big comeback.
He lost his card in 2013 but gained it straight back at the Qualifying School and then spent 11 consecutive years on Tour, winning again in 2015 and missing a chip for a 59 at the 2021 Omega European Masters as he fired a scintillating opening 60.
He would card just three top tens over the next three seasons, however, and ever-candidly admitted he was maybe looking to new avenues in broadcasting, even getting behind the mic on a few occasions while still playing.
Anyone who saw his crestfallen walk off the 18th after missing the cut at the the 2024 Q School may have suspected he had hit his last professional shot but Morrison, having only just turned 40, went back to the HotelPlanner Tour - missing nine out of ten cuts to start 2025.
A spectacular return to form saw him then claim a win out of nowhere - his first professional victory in just over a decade - at the BlotPlay9 but he was on the outside looking in at the graduation places when he arrived at the Rolex Grand Final supported by the R&A for what he thought would be his last event.
But with 13-year-old son Finley on the bag, he claimed a three-shot victory for an emotional second win of the season and a spectacular return to the DP World Tour for 2026.
Eddie Pepperell
Another popular Englishman, Pepperell's overarching story mirrors Morrison's in some ways, although he has taken a different route back to the DP World Tour.
A 2012 Challenge Tour graduate, Pepperell narrowly lost his card in 2016 but bounced straight back at the Qualifying School and went on to enjoy the two most fruitful years of his career so far, racking up two wins, two seconds, two thirds and eight other top tens across 2017 and 2018.
Another Race to Dubai top 50 came in 2022 but in 2024 he once again narrowly lost his card and heartbreak followed at Q School as he missed a seven-foot putt for eagle that would have seen him bounce straight back again.
But Pepperell, who has always been open about his struggles with both the technical and mental side of his game, admitted he was becoming frustrated and walked off the course at this year's Turkish Airlines Open, taking a month off from the game.
In his second event back he shared the lead after three rounds of the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge on the HotelPlanner Tour, only to have to withdraw through injury and he would finish the season 166th on the Race to Dubai and 79th on the Road to Mallorca.
Ever the entertainer, however, Pepperell had one more trick up his sleeve, birdieing the final four holes at Q School to catapult himself into the top 20 and back onto the DP World Tour for 2026.
Ashun Wu
In 2015, Wu did not have a card on the DP World Tour but secured one by winning the Volvo China Open - six days short of ten years later he did the same thing again.
The Chinese had already tasted success on the Japan Golf Tour when he won his home open and maintained momentum on the DP World Tour, winning again in 2016 and 2018.
He then finished outside the top 100 on the Race to Dubai Rankings for the next three seasons but was back in the winner's circle in 2022 in Kenya.
For the second time in his career, his winner's exemption was needed to keep hm on Tour in 2023 but there was heartbreak a year later as he missed out on keeping his card via the Race to Dubai by one spot.
He was on course for an instant return after five rounds at Q School but a closing 73 sent him tumbling down the leaderboard, severely limiting his opportunities in 2025.
Hearts made two starts in each of the Opening and International Swings but come the start of the Asian Swing, he capitalised on his previous winner's exemption to come home in 31 on Sunday, overturn a four-shot deficit and win the Volvo China Open for the second time to return to the DP World Tour for 2026.
Honourable mention : Aaron Cockerill
DP World Tour : Q School Final Stage. Leaderboard Tee Times
With the week of his entire year, Aaron Cockerill who only managed one top 10 all season has turned the whole season right on its head with rounds of 69 66 70 67 67 65 -24 to T2 at this Final Stage of the DP World Tour Q School to regain his card for 2026.
In 29 starts he missed 12 cuts, with just the one T10, finishing 120th in the Race to Dubai after being 49th in 2024, he admitted he " just didn't play well enough for 4 rounds all year" and in a candid interview "golf is such a crazy game, I can hit it so well one day, and so very poorly the next"
This is absolutely fantastic for the popular Canadian, now 34, his wife Chelsea, daughter Addison and all his sponsors, who were staring a year on the Challenge Tour (now Hotel Planner) squarely in the face.
europeantour.com
Bryan Angus (edit)
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