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Newsweek
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Newsweek
Rory McIlroy Follows Bryson DeCambeau's Footsteps Making History
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. In early February 2025, Bryson DeChambeau, who will arrive at next month's U.S. Open as the defending champion, made history on the other side of the world. He became the first reigning major winner to tee it up professionally in India, doing so at an Asian Tour event at the DLF Golf and Country Club. DeChambeau played well, posting a solo second finish thanks to a remarkable final round 65 on a difficult layout. But he finished four strokes behind Ollie Schniederjans, who finished atop the leaderboard at 10-under par. Only four players finished in red figures. Fast forward to Wednesday and another major champion announced that he will head to India this fall. Rory McIlroy smiles while playing the 14th hole during the second round of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Country Club. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) Rory McIlroy smiles while playing the 14th hole during the second round of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Country Club. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images/Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images Rory McIlroy, who won The Masters in dramatic fashion in April, has committed to playing in the inaugural DP World India Championship. The Delhi Golf Club will host this event from October 16-19. "I'm excited to not only tee it up in India for the first time but also visit a country that I've always wanted to explore," McIlroy said via a DP World Tour statement. "I'm proud to play in the inaugural DP World India Championship. I've always enjoyed playing a global schedule and as I have previously said, there is tremendous potential to grow golf further in the country. This is a great opportunity, and I can't wait to play in front of Indian golf fans." McIlroy's commitment to playing in India backs up his comments from January 2024, when he said he longed for a 'global tour.' His declaration came shortly after Jon Rahm bolted for LIV Golf. They also came a few days after Dec. 31, 2023, the date in which the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), LIV's beneficiary, set a deadline to strike a formal agreement. Of course, a formalized deal between the two sides still has not come into fruition all this time later. "My dream scenario is a world tour, with the proviso that corporate America has to remain a big part of it all. Saudi Arabia, too. That's just basic economics. But there is an untapped commercial opportunity out there. Investors always want to make a return on their money," McIlroy said before the 2024 Dubai Invitational in early January. "Revenues at the PGA Tour right now are about $2.3 billion. So, how do we get that number up to four or six? To me, it is by looking outward. They need to think internationally and spread their wings a bit. I've been banging that drum for a while." Since turning professional, McIlroy has teed it up in 28 different countries. India will be the 29th. "Whether [events] are rotated on the new global circuit, or we go with the same ones every year, I'm okay with either," McIlroy added then. "The Australian Open, for example, should almost be the fifth major. The market down there is huge with potential. They love golf. They love sport. They have been starved of top-level golf. And the courses are so good." Rory McIlroy Around the World McIlroy has committed to playing at the 2025 Australian Open. Royal Melbourne, long heralded as one of the best golf courses in the world, will host this year's tournament. Kingston Heath, another gem that is a part of Melbourne's 'Sand Belt' region, will host next year's Australian Open, which McIlroy will also play in. He is making it a priority to make starts around the world in 2025 and looks destined to do something similar in 2026. McIlroy's start on the Indian Subcontinent in October will likely be his first competitive event after playing in the Ryder Cup, which Bethpage Black on Long Island will host in September. It will mark McIlroy's eighth appearance for Team Europe in the biennial competition. Before then, McIlroy will return to the British Isles for two events, the Irish Open and the BMW PGA Championship. Last year, McIlroy coughed up the lead at the Irish Open at Royal County Down, losing to Rasmus Hojgaard by one. He then lost to Billy Horschel in a playoff at Wentworth the following week. This year's Irish Open will take place at The K Club while the BMW PGA Championship returns to Wentworth for the 41st consecutive year. McIlroy has also committed to playing in the Canadian Open in June — likely his next start — and the Scottish Open in July, prioritizing national opens ahead of other events. He also has the U.S. Open at Oakmont and The Open at Royal Portrush in his native Northern Ireland circled on his calendar. More Golf: Lefty Forced to Eat His Words after Scottie Scheffler Wins PGA Championship
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
McIlroy 'excited' to play first event in India
Masters champion Rory McIlroy says he is "excited" to play his first tournament in India in the DP World India Championship later this year. The five-time major winner will be in the field for the new event, which will be held at Delhi Golf Club from 16-19 October."I'm excited to not only tee it up in India for the first time but also visit a country that I've always wanted to explore," said McIlroy. "I'm proud to play in the inaugural DP World India Championship. I've always enjoyed playing a global schedule and as I have previously said, there is tremendous potential to grow golf further in the country. "This is a great opportunity, and I can't wait to play in front of Indian golf fans."Confirmation of McIlroy's first visit to India follows news that he will return to the Australian Open for the first time in 11 years in December. The world number two - who won the 2013 Australian Open - will headline the field at Royal Melbourne from 4-7 December and has also committed to playing in the 2026 tournament at Kingston a disappointing tied 47th finish at last week's US PGA Championship, McIlroy returns to action at the Memorial Tournament in Ohio on 29 36-year-old will also compete at the Canadian Open in the first week of June before bidding for his second major win of the year at the US Open at Oakmont in Pennsylvania.
Hindustan Times
02-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Who's rich? Who's poor? Who's middle-class?
There's a gated complex in Bengaluru so wealthy, it doesn't even bother with a nameplate on the outside. The villas here are astronomically priced, relative to the rest of this city. Prices start at ₹30 crore. Because this isn't merely real-estate. It is entry into a parallel India: one that flies private, to the Maldives, for the weekend, and sends children off to Ivy League schools with the nonchalance of a middle-class father asking his son to fetch a carton of milk. Statistically, this kind of wealth is supremely rare in India. Numerically, there are enough people in this sliver of the economy to outnumber every citizen of Iceland 2-to-1. That's what we often miss about the Indian economy. Every slice is so vast and varied, that the pie itself is more of a smorgasbord, with most of the meat and cheese heaped up in piles, and much of the board simply bare. How bare? Let's talk numbers. To make it into India's top 10% of income-earners, one must earn just ₹2.9 lakh a year. To enter the top 1%, ₹20.7 lakh will suffice. The unnamed gated complex exists as a slice within the 0.1%, where the average annual income stands at about ₹2.25 crore. Even this isn't unicorn startup-exit rich, or Delhi Golf Club rich. That level of elite is tucked away further within the 0.1%, a slice that is itself made up of nearly a million people. Wealth paints a similar picture. Accumulate ₹21 lakh in net assets, and one is now a 10-percenter. Accumulate ₹82 lakh and one is in the 1%. That might not even get one a modest flat in a metropolitan suburb, or a high-end SUV, but nationally, you are in rare company. The median adult has accumulated ₹4.3 lakh in assets. Meanwhile, a significant share owns nearly nothing. Just as millions of the poorest have no formal income at all. Are you quietly reassessing your place on the spectrum? Are you wondering how we got here? *** I recently posted a selfie with Elon Musk on LinkedIn, with the tongue-in-cheek caption: 'The average net worth in this picture is $200 billion.' The joke being, of course, that Musk's fortune hovers at about $400 billion. But the post was also making another point about averages and how they often mislead. The thing they say about damned lies and statistics? All numbers have to be viewed as telling only part of a story. Wealth in India is shadowy and slippery. Many of the truly rich avoid drawing attention, often for good reason: taxes, donation requests or worse. Many others seek to inflate their status to court investors, court power, or elicit envy. Plenty of not-so-poor Indians find ways to qualify for BPL (Below Poverty Line) cards, gaining access to subsidised rations and other entitlements. In measuring poverty and prosperity, we adhere to dry statistics and World Bank reports. But for all these reasons, they can only tell part of the story. Because measuring haves and have-nots is, by default, an exercise shaped by politics, power, and visibility. Start with an overarching question: How should one define wealth or poverty? Should it be restricted to income? Assets? Access? Expenditure? Should we look at households or individuals? Shouldn't urban and rural wealth be calculated differently? How should the ownership of land factor in? The averages are misleading primarily because they create the illusion of a plane, with different elevations. The truth is that, particularly in India, the rich and the poor exist on different planets. The differences aren't just financial. They are atmospheric. Some live behind unmarked gates. Use different sections of our airports. Send their children to certain universities only so they can share a classroom with future presidents and sitting presidents' kids — not for the sake of a name-drop either; but because there is an understanding that these young people will need to know each other, in order to shape the world they will inherit. *** Meanwhile, for millions at the bottom of the pyramid, a single fast-food meal is a dream out of reach. The Tamil film Kaaka Muttai (Crow's Egg; 2015) captured this tenderly. Two children in a Chennai slum dream of eating a pizza, something they have only seen in advertisements. It's a story of aspiration in a society where desire is cheap, but access is not. Three years later, in 2018, the Economist ran a piece titled India's Missing Middle Class, cautioning global brands that a billion-strong population doesn't mean a billion eager spenders. Not enough buyers have enough spending power, commercially speaking, it pointed out, to matter to a global company chasing a big pot of gold. If you're wondering what happened to the boys and their pizza, well, first they were turned away, then they were assaulted and told not to return. Then they were feted and courted, by a pizza shop owner afraid of a public outcry. Then they tasted the pizza and it made them miss their grandmother, recently deceased, who had made them a far better one using dosa batter. This is how we have always viewed wealth and poverty too. There is merit to being honourably poor, we're told. But, somehow, there isn't quite as much dishonour attached to being obscenely or illicitly wealthy. It's as much of a mixed bag of ideas as the ways in which we measure affluence itself. *** So what does being 'middle-class' in India really mean? I have a saying: If your spouse doesn't have to work, you're middle class. If neither of you has to work, you're rich. If your children don't either, you're wealthy. You're middle-class if you track EMIs and your child's school fees more closely than the Sensex. If you fly economy, buy your iPhone abroad, and Google 'best mid-range air purifiers'. If you obsess over the price of milk but also shop at Zara. The middle-class is aspirational, stretched, always-reaching. Everyone thinks they belong to it: the rich who consider themselves 'upper-middle' (is it superstition or guilt that keeps us from acknowledging where we really are on the spectrum?); the ambitious-but-poor, who don't want that label, and believe they will soon transition into the class of people whose greatest concern is where to buy their next smartphone. Except, that isn't the greatest worry of the middle-class, is it? Incomes haven't kept pace with lifestyle inflation here, especially in housing, healthcare and education. Liabilities are certain; income increasingly isn't. The middle-class frets about how long they can afford their home loans and SIPs. They fret about old age, retirement and health insurance. They certainly feel rich when they go shopping, but as certainly feel niggling worry when the IB school bill arrives. This is the cycle that keeps the economic engine ticking: Hope. Illusion. Karmic resignation. *** What of those on the margins: the ailing or differently abled, the single parents, those struggling with mental illness or addiction? The truth is, margins don't exist, in this sphere. One either sits within an income class or falls off its sharp edge, into whatever bracket one can now afford. Perhaps that's another reason the 1%ers and 10%ers do not view themselves as belonging to the upper echelons. Many have no generational wealth to fall back on. Most know they are one bad mishap away from being unable to support their current way of life, whatever it may be; in a country that can currently only help prop up the very poorest. This is why averages feel good, but mislead. Per capita income in India may suggest steady growth, but the affluence is so unevenly distributed, that most of the country lives not in a state of growing prosperity but a state of precarity instead. The Indian dream exists – but it is more often powered by hustle, chance and accidents of birth than by a system geared for individual growth. Aspiration is the one resource we seem to have in infinite supply. We overachieve on ambition. That keeps the hope alive, cycle after cycle. *** Can we fix it? Can economic opportunity be opened up, to more of the country's millions? India's feudal structure, the generational wealth it engendered and the historical gaps it perpetuated between people of the lower castes and classes, paired with the ravages of colonialism and subsequent decades of sluggish growth, have kept vast swathes of Indian society leashed. Those at the top of the totem pole retain their grip on the levers of power, or have the means to catch the ear of the powerful. Maybe, in the end, the real question isn't just where we stand, but who we see when we look around. As Gandhi put it: 'Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.' For policymakers, as well as for the privileged and for anyone making decisions that shape lives, this could be the north star. Fail to follow it, and our extremes of access and equity will continue to define who we are. Which will continue to hold us back. Because progress isn't only about growth at the top, but dignity and opportunity at every level. It isn't the Indian dream if only the 10% can dream it. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Hindustan Times
23-04-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
DP World India Championship to debut at DGC
New Delhi: The iconic Delhi Golf Club (DGC) will host DP World Tour's latest offering later this year with a record prize purse of $4 million, making DP World India Championship the most expensive golf tournament ever played in India. HT reported the development in January along with the likelihood of five-time Major winner Rory McIlroy making his India debut in the said competition. That possibility hasn't been ruled out yet. 'DP World Tour is in touch with many top players, including Rory, and we are hopeful that he will turn up,' a senior DGC member told HT. The competition, to be played from October 16-19 on the Gary Player-designed course, is co-sanctioned with the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI). It will be eighth of the nine events on the Back 9 phase of the 2025 Race to Dubai, building towards the season-ending DP World Tour Play-Offs and culminating in the DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. The tournament also marks the Tour's return to DGC for the first time since 2016 and ends club's two-year wait for an international event. Post its facelift by Gary Player in 2019, the club hosted the first two editions of DGC Open (2022 and 2023) but the Asian Tour co-sanctioned tournament has since failed to return. The club signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with DP World Tour in January when the latter's Chief Tournament Business Officer Ben Cowen flew down to Delhi. Along with McIlroy, who won the 2025 Masters in a playoff with Justin Rose, Hero Indian Open winners Eugenio Chacarra (2025) and Keita Nakajima (2024) are expected to tee off at the European Tour competition. The DP World India Championship will be the third high-profile men's golf event in India this year, followed by the maiden Asian Tour and LIV Golf-funded $2 million International Series and DP World Tour's Hero Indian Open last month that offered a purse of $2.25 million. 'We are delighted to extend our commitment to golf in India by establishing the new DP World India Championship and we look forward to building on our shared vision to grow the game in the country. Our thanks also go to Delhi Golf Club for giving us the opportunity to return to such an iconic venue this October.' Cowen said.
The Hindu
23-04-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Delhi Golf Club to host DP World Championship in October
The Delhi Golf Club (DGC) will host the $4 million DP World India Championship from October 16 to 19 this year. It will be the biggest prize money event in the country and marks the return of international golf to the DGC after 2016. The president of the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), Kapil Dev, assured all efforts to make the event a 'grand success'. 'The inaugural DP World India Championship is a landmark moment for Indian golf. The tournament provides a great opportunity for our professionals to rub shoulders with some of the best players in the world and gain valuable international exposure. A world-class field vying for a record prize purse and playing at a top-notch international venue, the Delhi Golf Club, makes it a spectacle for the golf fans,' said Kapil Dev. The president of DGC, Raj Khosla, was happy to play host to the event, amidst growing competition. The Indian event will be the eighth of nine in the 'Back 9' phase of the Race to Dubai, leading to the play-offs and culminating in the championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai. 'We are committed to growing golf in the country. We are working to elevate the Tour in every way and drive positive community impact,' said the CEO and Managing Director of DP World, Rizwan Soomar.
