Runner-up last year at Sanderson Farms Championship, Beau Hossler returns with confidence

• Beau Hossler is returning to the Sanderson Farms Championship after losing in a playoff in 2024.
• Hossler has never missed the cut at the Country Club of Jackson in his previous four appearances.
• He feels confident about his game, citing recent improvements in his ball striking.

JACKSON, Miss. — Beau Hossler was just a few strokes away from securing his first PGA Tour win at the 2024 Sanderson Farms Championship. After establishing himself as a frontrunner going into the final round, Hossler lost to Kevin Yu by one in a playoff.

“Obviously, disappointed not to win,” Hossler said after playing in a Sanderson Farms Championship pro-am on Wednesday. “But I performed really well the back nine, and honestly, made a nice par in the playoff, and Kevin played a perfect hole and made birdie and beat me, and sometimes you have to tip your cap.”

Now, Hossler is back in Jackson for this year’s tournament at the Country Club of Jackson from Oct. 2-5. After coming up short in dramatic fashion in 2024, Hossler has an optimistic outlook for the 2025 tournament.

“I feel good about the week," said Hossler, who has four runner-up finishes in his PGA Tour career. "I feel like my game’s in pretty good shape, and at the end of the day, it’s about just going out for four days and having the best attitude you can and executing golf shots.”

Hossler’s confidence stems from results he deems successful at previous Sanderson Farms events. In 2025 he will play the tournament for a fifth time on a course he’s never missed the cut on.

He finished T-10 in 2018 and T-28 in 2023, with scores of 68 and 67 in the first two rounds. His T-57 result in 2021 included a score of 69 in the second round.

“Coming to a course that I’ve had a bit of success, even though some other times, I haven’t had super high finishes, I’ve had some really good rounds here … it just gives you a bit of familiarity and confidence maybe that this could be a week, hopefully, for something really good,” Hossler said.

As for his play generally leading up to this year’s tournament, Hossler’s results also better than last year’s. Since July, he’s only missed a cut once, compared to three times in 2024. In that same span, he’s finished in the top 15 four times in six tournaments, including a T-4 finish at the Barracuda Championship.

He only played one tournament in August, using the remainder of the month to rest and work on his game. He feels he’s made some key improvements, most notably in his mechanics and ball striking, which he called “a really big deal.”

“I’ve had an opportunity to go home and work on some things in my swing that (I) probably wouldn’t have been able to do during a stretch of playing a lot of golf," Hossler said. "Had another two weeks to work on it, and we’ll see how it goes this week.”

Tia Reid covers Jackson State sports for the Clarion Ledger. Email her at treid@gannett.com and follow her on X @tiareid65.