NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. \u2014 Rory McIlroy was not in a rush. He arrived in a blue BMW despite the courtesy cars on offer this week being from Lexus. He wore no hat and a cream Nike workout set of shorts and a hoodie. McIlroy was unbothered yet focused. He spoke with humour and a tinge of spice. This was a far cry from the McIlroy we saw at last year\u2019s PGA Championship. He was still the Masters champion, but he was more at peace with, well, everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler is the game\u2019s best, and Cameron Young is the game\u2019s hottest, and what a treat it would be to see the best in the game battle it out for this particular major \u2014 something we\u2019ve been devoid of through this generation \u2014 but McIlroy remains the alpha on top. McIlroy, with six majors, is chasing the likes of Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead. Everyone else on the PGA Tour is chasing McIlroy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Augusta, it was an impressive display. His best club (the driver) was his worst club, and he still won the tournament,\u201d Xander Schauffele said last week. \u201cThat\u2019s a little scary, obviously, if you\u2019re competing against him.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy is looking to become the first golfer since Jordan Spieth in 2015 to win the first two majors of the year and just the fifth all-time. He hasn\u2019t had the best of seasons on the PGA Tour so far, but his major resume speaks for itself: 12 top-10 finishes in his last 20 major starts, including the back-to-back Masters triumphs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t an idyllic Tuesday afternoon for McIlroy as he stopped his practice round after just three holes due to a toe injury \u2014 the BBC reported that he went up a half-size in his shoes this week as he nursed a blister-under-his-nail situation on the little toe of his right foot \u2014 but seemed to be in fine spirits as he left the course.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McIlroy mentioned his toe injury last week at the Truist Championship \u2014 his first start in three weeks, where he finished tied for 19th \u2014 but didn\u2019t make much of it then either. After the Masters, McIlroy did not tee it up on the PGA Tour but instead made a trip to Aronimink Golf Club a few weeks ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These kinds of scouting missions, McIlroy said, came on the back of some advice from Jack Nicklaus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome majors, I haven’t went to the tournament site ahead of schedule, and I’ve done well, but for the most part, when I have made an advanced trip, it’s worked out well for me,\u201d said McIlroy, who went home to Florida Sunday after he finished at the Truist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s some good news for McIlroy \u2014 if he is forced to cut his practice time short on Wednesday as well \u2014 it is that it doesn\u2019t appear Aronimink will be posing too many hard questions to the best in the world. An elite driver of the golf ball, like McIlroy, is going to just bypass a lot of the trouble. Aronimink is not immune to this. It\u2019s just the way the modern game has gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think in this day and age, I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag \u2026 strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent. It’s basically bash driver down there and then figure it out from there,\u201d McIlroy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the kind of statement that could, in years\u2019 past, make plenty of headlines. But McIlroy \u2014 whose time since the Masters has included a White House state dinner, a (speaking!) cameo in The Devil Wears Prada sequel, and an appearance on New Heights\u00a0with Travis and Jason Kelce \u2014 cared little. McIlroy, for years, has kept winning. But he continued to have this relentless pursuit of a bigger goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By achieving that last April, he can commit to doing and saying whatever brings him joy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing, but there’s still a lot of things I want to achieve. But if I can enjoy it along the way, that’s a nice thing to do,\u201d McIlroy said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the grand slam triumph in the rearview mirror, McIlroy has been able to reset and re-energize himself. Last year\u2019s PGA Championship host, Quail Hollow Club, has been a happy hunting ground for McIlroy \u2014 he\u2019s won four PGA Tour events there. But in 2025, he completely laid an egg, barely made the cut, and didn\u2019t speak to the media after any tournament round. It was, he admitted, hard to come to grips with the incredible April achievement. He even went so far as to say he was \u201cuncertain\u201d about what his future would be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the New Heights\u00a0podcast, McIlroy said he went through \u201ca lull\u201d last year but didn\u2019t want to fall back into that same mental state this time around. He gave himself 10 days to celebrate, but the last 10 days leading into the Truist Championship, he got back on the horse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still a lot of golf left this season, and I feel like I’m in such a good spot that I don’t want to waste a couple months of the season like last year,\u201d McIlroy told the Kelce brothers. \u201cI’ve enjoyed it, but I feel like it’s time to lock back in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s ready to do it at a place that\u2019s seemingly built for his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into this tournament feels a lot different than what it did last year,\u201d McIlroy said. \u201cI feel like I’ve got some nice, clear road ahead to try to get some more of these majors.\u201d<\/p>\n
And there is nothing more joyful for McIlroy, at this stage in his life and career, than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth will once again attempt to capture the career grand slam. Spieth had a magical major run in 2015-17, winning three of the four legs. He\u2019s yet to find his form from a decade ago, but comes into this week\u2019s PGA Championship with five top-20 finishes this season\u2026 <\/p>\n
Brandt Snedeker is playing his first major since 2021 after winning the ONEFlight Myrtle Beach Classic Sunday, the first win for Snedeker on the PGA Tour in eight years\u2026 <\/p>\n
The last time the PGA Tour was at Aronimink for the 2018 BMW Championship, the leaderboard was stacked. Keegan Bradley won in a playoff over Justin Rose, while Xander Schauffele was just one back, McIlroy was two back, and Tiger Woods was three back. Woods and McIlroy both share the course record (62) along with Nick Watney, Kevin Na, and Tommy Fleetwood\u2026 <\/p>\n
Twenty-nine players who teed it up at the 2018 BMW Championship are set to be in the field this week, including all who finished in the top five\u2026 <\/p>\n
This is the first PGA Championship that won\u2019t feature both Woods and Phil Mickelson since 1991\u2026 <\/p>\n
This is the first men\u2019s PGA Championship at Aronimink since 1962 (won by Gary Player). The KPMG Women\u2019s PGA Championship was contested here in 2020, won by Sei Young Kim (Brooke Henderson finished sixth)\u2026 <\/p>\n
Aronimink was founded in the late 1800s and was relocated to its current spot in 1928, designed by the iconic architect Donald Ross. It was re-worked by Gil Hanse in preparation for the PGA Tour\u2019s return in 2018 and was the first venue to host all of the PGA, Women\u2019s PGA, and Senior PGA Championships\u2026 <\/p>\n
The Director of Instruction at Aronimink is Canadian Riley Wheeldon, a winner on the then-PGA Tour Canada in 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take the foursome of McIlroy, Scheffler, Young, and Fitzpatrick out of the mix here. Who else could make a run this week?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jon Rahm (+1600): Rahm has not finished outside the top 8 in any LIV Golf event this season and has two wins and three runner-up results. He has eight top-10s in his last 20 major starts and is gunning for the third leg of the grand slam this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Xander Schauffele (+1800): Each of the last 10 PGA Championship winners was American \u2014 including Schauffele in 2024. He has finished in the top 10 in exactly half of the last 20 majors played and holds the second-lowest scoring average of anyone over the last four majors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alex Fitzpatrick (+10000): The other\u00a0Fitzpatrick has gone on quite the run over the last month or so. First, he broke through for his first PGA Tour victory alongside brother Matt at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and then he went T9-4 at his last two starts \u2014 both signature events. He also has a win on the DP World Tour earlier this year. Last week, he gained nearly eight strokes to the field tee-to-green. If he keeps that up, watch out.<\/p>\n
Matt McCarty (+15000): Talk about riding the wave. McCarty comes into this week with a ton of momentum, having notched top-15 finishes at four straight tournaments \u2014 three of them signature events. He was also a T2 on the season and finished top 25 at the Masters.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. \u2014 Rory McIlroy was not in a rush. He arrived in a blue BMW despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-665872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}