Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy paired together at US Open
The duo were among the first players on the course on Wednesday morning as they played the back nine together and got a look at the notorious rough. Shortly before the end of their practice, the USGA confirmed that they will be spending a lot more time together this week.
McIlroy, Lowry and Ryder Cup teammate Justin Rose will be in an early-late grouping which will go out at 7.40am local time (12.40pm Irish time) for Thursday's opening round and 1.25pm (6.25pm Irish time) on Friday afternoon.
Read More
Rory Land: New book explores McIlroy's golfing brilliance and personal struggles
While McIlroy's struggles to kick on from his glory at Augusta have been a talking point coming into the year's third major, so too has Lowry's chances at a course where he held the Sunday lead when it last hosted the US Open in 2016. The duo were, of course, teammate for Ireland at the Paris Olympics last summer and were victorious as a team on the PGA Tour last year in New Orleans.
The presence of Rose adds but another subplot given the English veteran was the one who came out the wrong side of that unforgettable playoff at the Masters in April when McIlroy completed the career grand slam.
Among other eye-catching groups the trio of PGA champion Scottie Scheffler alongside Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa will attract plenty of galleries while fan favourite Jordan Spieth will play alongside LIV Golf duo Jon Rahm and Dustin Johnson.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The 42
4 hours ago
- The 42
Trump course back on PGA schedule for 2026 season
DONALD TRUMP'S FAMED Trump National Doral course will host a PGA Tour event next season, returning to the circuit after a 10-year absence, the tour confirmed on Tuesday. Doral's 'Blue Monster' was a regular stop on the PGA circuit for more than half a century, hosting a tournament annually from 1962 to 2016, when it staged the WGC-Cadillac Championship. However the tournament was moved from Doral after sponsor Cadillac decided not to renew its sponsorship and a replacement sponsor could not be found. The PGA Tour, which had been sharply critical of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric concerning immigrants, subsequently moved the event to Mexico — prompting a furious reaction from Trump at the time. Advertisement Doral has since hosted a stop on the Saudi Arabia-financed LIV Golf circuit. As of next season, however, the course will stage The Miami Championship, which will become one of the PGA Tour's nine signature events — the elite tournaments that feature the world's best players and offer purses of $20 million [€17.18m]. 'We're excited to showcase the game's greatest players competing at golf's most iconic venues,' PGA Tour chief executive Brian Rolapp said in a statement to announce the 2026 schedule. 'Inspired by our players and fans, we're accelerating the Tour's evolution and ushering in a new era of innovation on and off the course.' The PGA Tour has had an uneasy relationship with avid golfer Trump over the past decade. The tour issued a statement in 2015 which said Trump's remarks about Mexican immigrants were 'inconsistent with our strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of golf'. When the PGA Tour subsequently moved its WGC event to Mexico for commercial reasons following the failure to find a sponsor, Trump reacted angrily, describing it as a 'sad day for Miami, the United States and the game of golf'. 'They're moving it to Mexico City,' Trump said at the time. 'I hope they have kidnapping insurance.' Trump's relationship with the PGA Tour has improved in recent years however, with the US leader involved in peace talks between the tour and LIV Golf over a possible deal to unify the two rival circuits. – © AFP 2025
RTÉ News
5 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Rory McIlroy welcomes 'clean slate' for a shot at FedEx riches
Rory McIlroy says he is comfortable with the format change at this year's Tour Championship, which gives each one of the 30-strong field a unique chance to lift the FedEx Cup. Masters champion McIlroy is second in the FedEx rankings behind defending champion Scottie Scheffler, but will not start with a two-shot deficit as the unpopular starting-strokes format has been scrapped this year. Every player will start equal at East Lake in Atlanta on Thursday, meaning the Tour Championship winner will also be crowned FedEx champion and will pocket the $10m on offer. McIlroy said: "Any time you make it back to East Lake you've had a good year and it's always nice to come back. "We've played this event and this golf course in a bunch of different formats. "It has a different feel, any one of the 30 has a chance to win the FedEx Cup this year, which is obviously a lot different than it's been in previous years. "It's a clean slate for everyone and it's a great opportunity for one of the guys who maybe wasn't a huge part of the season to put their hand up and have a chance to win the big prize at the end of the year. "It's also an opportunity for some of the guys who have had great years to rubberstamp the season a little bit and end of a positive note. There's still a lot to play for this week." Tommy Fleetwood, up to fifth in the FedEx Cup rankings after back-to-back tied-third and tied-fourth finishes, said he was excited that this year's new format gives everyone an equal chance. He said: "I'm sure everybody aside from Scottie Scheffler will love the fact we're all starting on a level playing field. You win this week and you're holding two trophies." Fleetwood, who has had seven top-10 finishes this season, is still chasing his first PGA Tour win after coming close at the FedEx St Jude Championship before his tied-fourth finish on Sunday at the BMW Championship. He added: "I'll finish it off at some point. I'll get it right and I'll get it right more than once. "Best-case scenario, coming down the stretch at East Lake with a chance to win. Whether I get it right or not, whether someone plays better or not, I'll talk about that after."
Irish Examiner
6 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Rory McIlroy: 'I've waited 17 years to sign that flag in the middle, and I will never complain about doing it'
Rory McIlroy is back in Georgia for the first time since winning the Masters in Augusta in April, and he still gets emotional thinking about winning the green jacket. McIlroy bought out the remaining inventory of 1,100 Masters flags from the merchandise shop last April before he left, and says the requests to autograph them will never get old. 'It's been a lot,' McIlroy said of the flag-signings. 'But I'll never get sick of signing them. I've waited 17 years to sign that flag in the middle, and I will never complain about doing it.' By tradition, only Masters champions are allowed to sign in the middle of the Masters logo outline of the United States. McIlroy never violated that unwritten rule before finally donning a green jacket. The Masters proved to be McIlroy's third and final victory of the 2025 PGA Tour season, capping a run when he ruled the top of the FedEx Cup standings after wins at Pebble Beach and the Players Championship. Since then, Scottie Scheffler regained his dominant form from 2024 and won five times including two majors and last week's BMW Championship playoff event to roll into the Tour Championship at East Lake as the points leader for the fourth consecutive year. Scheffler has more than twice as many points (7,456) as McIlroy in second (3,687). But none of that matters this week, as the PGA Tour scrapped its staggered tarting strokes system that had Scheffler beginning the Tour Championship at 10-under and at least two strokes ahead of anyone else. 'I'm in a better position than I have been the last few years, so that's a nice thing,' McIlroy said. Despite having his best chance to win a fourth FedEx Cup since the starting strokes started, he kind of misses the discarded format. 'I'm maybe part of the minority. I didn't hate the starting strokes,' McIlroy said. 'I thought that the player that played the best during the course of the season should have had an advantage coming in here. But the majority of people just didn't like the starting strokes – whether it were players or fans. I was on the PAC when we were trying to go through that, and really it was just a way to try to simplify the advantage that the top players were going to get over the course of the week instead of [Golf Channel's] Steve Sands doing calculations on a white board. 'But you could also argue if it was starting strokes this week, Scottie with a two-shot lead, it probably isn't enough considering what he's done this year and the lead that he has in the FedEx Cup going into this week. … 'Look, it's a 72-hole stroke-play event, and that's what we play week in and week out. That's what's going to determine the winner. I don't know if it's the best format, but it's the one that we have for this week.' McIlroy skipped the playoff opener in Memphis two weeks ago as well as three of the eight signature events in 2025 – the season-opening Sentry, the RBC Heritage after the Masters and the Memorial ahead of the U.S. Open. On Wednesday, the PGA Tour announced its 2026 schedule and the biggest surprise is the addition of a ninth signature event right in the middle of the busiest stretch of the season. The tour, like so many corporate entities, chose to bend the knee to the American president and place an as-yet unsponsored signature event on the Blue Monster course at Doral in April. That means there will be five signature events and four majors in four months from April to July, including a six-week stretch with five marquee tournaments from the Masters to the PGA with the Truist Championship at Wells Fargo and new Miami Championship in consecutive weeks ahead of the PGA. Only the Zurich Classic team event in New Orleans resides in the middle of that run. McIlroy, surprisingly, endorsed the even more crowded schedule. 'I think it's all positive when you have – golf builds through the January, February, March months, and obviously golf gets a huge popularity spike or whatever through Augusta,' he said. 'And then to try to keep that momentum going, keep that momentum going through the next few weeks, through the PGA, U.S. Open, I think it's a good thing. 'It's quite a bit of a workload for the players to play that much golf in that stretch, but I think it's not as if we're having to travel halfway around the world to do it. These are all pretty easy stops on the East Coast for the most part. But I think it'll be good. It'll be a good schedule.' Will he continue to skip some of the events designed to bring all the best players together? 'I'll always choose the schedule that best fits me, and this year that meant skipping a few signature events,' he said. 'I might skip less next year. I might skip the same amount, I don't know. It's all just – the luxury of being a PGA Tour player is we are free to pick and choose our schedule for the most part, and I took advantage of that this year and I'll continue to take advantage of that for as long as I can.' As for this week, McIlroy is ready for his 12th Tour Championship and seventh in a row since 2018. 'Anytime you make it back to East Lake you've had a good year, so it's always nice to come back,' he said. 'I'm on a nice little streak of playing some consistent golf over the last few years and getting myself back here. 'We've played this event and this golf course in a bunch of different formats. There's been a lot of different ways that we've played it. The nines have changed, have flipped. There's been a golf course renovation (in 2024), which I think is actually very, very good. I'm refamiliarizing myself with that today. 'Look, it has a different feel. Any one of the 30 has a chance to win the FedEx Cup this year, which is obviously a lot different than it's been in previous years. I think with that, it's a clean slate for everyone, and it's a great opportunity for one of the guys that maybe wasn't a huge part of the season to put their hand up and have a chance to win the big prize at the end of the year.'
