NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. — 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’s PGA Championship. He was still the Masters champion, but he was more at peace with, well, everything.
Scottie Scheffler is the game’s best, and Cameron Young is the game’s hottest, and what a treat it would be to see the best in the game battle it out for this particular major — something we’ve been devoid of through this generation — 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.
“At Augusta, it was an impressive display. His best club (the driver) was his worst club, and he still won the tournament,” Xander Schauffele said last week. “That’s a little scary, obviously, if you’re competing against him.”
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’t 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.
It wasn’t an idyllic Tuesday afternoon for McIlroy as he stopped his practice round after just three holes due to a toe injury — 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 — but seemed to be in fine spirits as he left the course.
McIlroy mentioned his toe injury last week at the Truist Championship — his first start in three weeks, where he finished tied for 19th — but didn’t 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.
These kinds of scouting missions, McIlroy said, came on the back of some advice from Jack Nicklaus.
“Some 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,” said McIlroy, who went home to Florida Sunday after he finished at the Truist.
If there’s some good news for McIlroy — if he is forced to cut his practice time short on Wednesday as well — it is that it doesn’t 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’s just the way the modern game has gone.
“I think in this day and age, I'm not sure if it's going to test all aspects of your bag … strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent. It's basically bash driver down there and then figure it out from there,” McIlroy said.
It was the kind of statement that could, in years’ past, make plenty of headlines. But McIlroy — 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 with Travis and Jason Kelce — cared little. McIlroy, for years, has kept winning. But he continued to have this relentless pursuit of a bigger goal.
By achieving that last April, he can commit to doing and saying whatever brings him joy.
“It’s 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,” McIlroy said.
With the grand slam triumph in the rearview mirror, McIlroy has been able to reset and re-energize himself. Last year’s PGA Championship host, Quail Hollow Club, has been a happy hunting ground for McIlroy — he’s won four PGA Tour events there. But in 2025, he completely laid an egg, barely made the cut, and didn’t 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 “uncertain” about what his future would be.
On the New Heights podcast, McIlroy said he went through “a lull” last year but didn’t 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.
“There 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,” McIlroy told the Kelce brothers. “I've enjoyed it, but I feel like it's time to lock back in.”
Now he’s ready to do it at a place that’s seemingly built for his game.
“Coming into this tournament feels a lot different than what it did last year,” McIlroy said. “I feel like I've got some nice, clear road ahead to try to get some more of these majors.”
And there is nothing more joyful for McIlroy, at this stage in his life and career, than that.
CHIP SHOTS:
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’s yet to find his form from a decade ago, but comes into this week’s PGA Championship with five top-20 finishes this season…
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…
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…
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…
This is the first PGA Championship that won’t feature both Woods and Phil Mickelson since 1991…
This is the first men’s PGA Championship at Aronimink since 1962 (won by Gary Player). The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship was contested here in 2020, won by Sei Young Kim (Brooke Henderson finished sixth)…
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’s return in 2018 and was the first venue to host all of the PGA, Women’s PGA, and Senior PGA Championships…
The Director of Instruction at Aronimink is Canadian Riley Wheeldon, a winner on the then-PGA Tour Canada in 2013.
BEST BETS:
Let’s take the foursome of McIlroy, Scheffler, Young, and Fitzpatrick out of the mix here. Who else could make a run this week?
(Odds via BetMGM)
Favourites
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.
Xander Schauffele (+1800): Each of the last 10 PGA Championship winners was American — 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.
Long Shots
Alex Fitzpatrick (+10000): The other Fitzpatrick 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 — 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.
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 — three of them signature events. He was also a T2 on the season and finished top 25 at the Masters.
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