Stewart Cink returns to The Woodlands Country Club this week to defend his 2025 Insperity Invitational title, with seven World Golf Hall of Fame members in a 78-player field on the PGA Tour Champions and Thongchai Jaidee setting the early pace at six-under through 13 holes when bad weather suspended Friday's opening round.
Cink arrives in Texas in arguably the best stretch of his senior career. He won the Regions Tradition at Greystone Golf and Country Club last weekend, his second straight major title on the PGA Tour Champions, and that result made him the headline name heading into a $3 million purse week at The Woodlands. He took the 2025 Insperity in playoff fashion, sinking a birdie at the first extra hole to beat Retief Goosen.
Both are back in the field. Goosen, looking to settle last year's score, is joined by four-time Insperity winner Bernhard Langer, who claimed the title in 2007, 2008, 2014 and 2018, plus Padraig Harrington, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Colin Montgomerie and Zach Johnson. The depth is the deepest of the year on the senior schedule outside of the major championships themselves.
Notable in the field is Fred Couples, returning to the Insperity Invitational for the first time since 2022 after stepping back from regular Champions Tour duty over the past three seasons.
The Woodlands Country Club plays as a par 72 of 7,002 yards. The Bermuda greens have been a stage for some of Bernhard Langer's most dominant senior tour weeks. He holds the tournament records for low 18-hole (62 in the opening round of 2007), low 36-hole total (127, also in 2007) and low 54-hole winning score (191), all set during the same era of his absolute domination on the senior circuit. The course tends to reward steady ball-striking, mid-range iron precision and the kind of confident lag-putting that the older statesmen of professional golf have spent careers honing.
Television coverage on Golf Channel runs Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. ET on tape delay, Saturday from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. ET on tape delay, and live on Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m. ET. The winner's share is $450,000 — a meaningful payout on a circuit where prize purses, while smaller than the regular PGA Tour, still represent the better-than-living wages that drive senior tour participation.
For Cink, the question is whether the form he has carried from the Regions Tradition translates into a back-to-back. The week is also the third regular event for the senior tour after the Regions Tradition and the Senior PGA Championship, and the schedule turns next week to the Senior PGA at Congressional, where the third senior major of the year will be decided over four rounds.
Inside the player notes, Tom Watson is among the eight Hall of Famers in the field — though the eight-time major champion has not been a competitive force in the Insperity field for several years, his presence still carries weight in the gallery. Padraig Harrington, who won at the 2022 Senior Open at Gleneagles, will fancy his chances on a course that suits his ball-striking style.
The Insperity is, at heart, a Houston-area community fixture. Most of the players on the senior tour pass through the city annually, and the tournament operates a deep junior and pro-am program around the main field. The opening round resumes Friday after weather permitted only partial play on Thursday, with the leaderboard expected to reshuffle as the Hall of Famers move through the back nine in tighter wind conditions.
The field is set, the course is in shape, and the defending champion is in form. The Insperity, after Cink's recent run, may be the senior tour's most loaded regular tournament of the year.
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*Originally published on [Golf News](https://golfnews.global/article/insperity-invitational-2026-stewart-cink-defends-fred-couples-bernhard-langer-the-woodlands). Visit for full coverage.*
