Latest news with #QuailHollowChampionship
New York Post
14-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Post
Rory McIlroy's surprising revelation about his first PGA Tour win at Quail Hollow
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Rory McIlroy's first career PGA Tour victory, which took place in 2010 at Quail Hollow when he was a 21-year-old, almost never took place, he revealed on Wednesday. 'I wasn't even supposed to play this tournament in 2010,'' McIlroy said on the eve of Thursday's PGA Championship opening round at Quail Hollow, where he's won four times. Here's how it went down: Advertisement 'I had missed the cut at the Masters and I was struggling with a bad back,'' McIlroy recalled. 'I got an MRI scan when I went home and it showed some stress around L4-L5, and the doctor told me it's probably better if you rest for a few weeks and not play. Rory McIlroy poses with the trophy after winning the Quail Hollow Championship on May 2, 2010. Sports Illustrated via Getty Ima 'The weekend before, I played a round of golf at Royal Portrush and I played really, really well, and my back was feeling a little bit better. (So), I came over here excited to play. 'I didn't play so good in the first round, and it was my first year as a member on the PGA Tour. I was playing in the afternoon (in the opening round) and off the 10th tee on Friday. I needed to play the last three holes in 2-under par just to make the cut. I eagled 7, hit a 4-iron into 15 feet, holed that, and then I two-putted from about 60 feet on 9 to make the cut. Advertisement 'Then I played with Scott McCarron on Saturday morning (and) I went out and shot 66. (The conditions) got pretty tough in the afternoon and got me into the top 10. I was excited about that, and I remember on the Saturday night, there was a big boxing fight on. It was like Manny Pacquiao or might have been maybe Floyd Mayweather, and we went to the Del Frisco's there in South Park and we watched it at midnight. 'I remember getting to bed at like 2 a.m. I woke up the next day, playing with Anthony Kim, and I went out and played one of the rounds of my life and won my first PGA Tour event. It was an amazing day. It feels like such a long time ago, but at the same time I can remember that. Rory McIlroy speaks to reporters ahead of the PGA Championship on May 14, 2025. AP Advertisement 'Those things stay with you, and I think part of the reason that I've played so well here since is I had such positive momentum, those positive memories, and every time I come here, those good feelings get rekindled. It's been a good place for me.'' The 36-year-old McIlroy, who has 29 career wins on the PGA Tour, won the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in 2010, 2015, 2021 and 2024.
The Journal
14-05-2025
- Sport
- The Journal
'One of my favourite places in the world' - Why Quail Hollow sets McIlroy up for absurd tilt at the Rory Slam
The 42 reports from Quail Hollow Golf Club THERE ARE MEANS of seeking relief in golf without turning to a rules official. For Rory McIlroy, his has usually been to make a trip to Charlotte and turn down Gleneagles Road to Quail Hollow Golf Club. It was here in 2010 that McIlroy underlined his arrival on the PGA Tour, winning his first title to a delightful Jim Nantz flourish from the commentary booth. Welcome to the big time, Rory McIlroy! That victory made him the youngest winner on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods, and he did it in characteristically stomach-swooping fashion. He eagled the 16th hole on Friday to make the cut right on the number, before he set a course-record 62 on Sunday to sprint home to a four-shot win. McIlroy poses with the trophy after his first Quail Hollow victory in 2010. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo That course record stood for five years until McIlroy took a further shot off it on Saturday en route to a seven-shot victory, still the largest winning margin in the history of the oft-renamed Quail Hollow Championship. The place has also been a balm in troubled times. McIlroy arrived here in May 2021 amid what qualifies as a slough in form by his heady standards. Without a win since November 2019, McIlroy had dropped to 15th in the world – his lowest ranking in 12 years – and was suffering from a familiar ailment known as an over-exposure to Bryson DeChambeau. DeChambeau was then in full Hulk mode, and McIlroy lost his swing as he was spending too much time trying to match Bryson for ball speed. But having missed the cut at the Players Championship and the Masters, McIlroy slipped into the familiar Quail Hollow embrace and found himself two shots clear of Abraham Ancer standing on the 72nd tee. And such are the blissful effects of Quail Hollow, the place even lulled McIlroy into listening to his caddie. When McIlroy went out of position off the tee, his genius tendencies left him considering a wildly risky rescue shot before being talked down from the ledge by Harry Diamond, who instead told him to take a penalty drop and sign for a tournament-clinching bogey. Diamond won the argument. . . and McIlroy won the tournament. McIlroy signed off by describing Quail Hollow as one of his favourite places in the world. Diamond presumably agreed. There followed another win here last year, putting his foot on Xander Schauffele's throat with a storming Sunday finish to win by five shots. Schauffele went on to win two of the year's remaining three majors. Away from the victories, stats guru Justin Ray crunched the numbers for the best cumulative score to par at Quail Hollow since McIlroy debuted in 2010. McIlroy is 102-under across 50 rounds, with Rickie Fowler the next closest on -47, followed by Phil Mickelson on -44. Though McIlroy didn't defend his latest Wells Fargo title last week, he said he didn't feel like he was defending it either. Hosting the PGA Championship this week left the Tour event dereacinated, and so it popped up in Philadelphia instead. Advertisement Hence McIlroy says this week feels more like a title defence instead. While not strictly true, there is a sense that McIlroy's at least playing with what the Americans would call home field advantage. His snug course fit here is summed up by Brooks Koepka's description of Quail Hollow as a 'bombers' paradise.' Only Aldrich Potgieter and Niklas Norgaard are driving the ball further than McIlroy on the PGA Tour this year, and while the equivalent stats on LIV are patchy and unreliable, we have enough evidence at this point to say only really DeChambeau can live with McIlroy off the tee. McIlroy's power game thus gives him the muscle to wrestle the course into submission. Quail Hollow's primary defences are firm greens and, this week, thickened rough mowed back in the direction of the tee. McIlroy's distance gives him greater control when attacking those greens, while he has greater power than most to punch out of that rough. These are merely the blatant advantages as the course, in golferspeak, fits his eye. It is built for his signature right-to-left draw, and while McIlroy was extremely inaccurate off the tee in Philadelphia – finding only eight fairways across the closing two rounds - he attributed this at least partly to the lack of architecture around the Philadelphia course. He feels more comfortable when he has targets, he explained, be they grandstands, TV towers, or great big advertising logos, which he has always found easily around Quail Hollow. 'I would argue he's the best driver of the ball I've ever seen, and that is extremely important here,' said Justin Thomas when asked as to why the course suits McIlroy so well. 'But I think his shot shape, I think this golf course fits a high draw really, really well. That's a tremendous advantage or threat at any golf course, but I feel like a place like this, where it doesn't necessarily require a lot of thought or strategy off the tee, it's generally pulling out driver and just I need to hit this as far and straight as possible, and he's really, really good at that.' Thomas won the 2017 PGA Championship when it was last held at Quail Hollow, at which McIlroy finished in a tie for 22nd place that was mitigated by a rib injury. Ahead of that event, he said he didn't have anything left to prove, as questions began to accrete about a major drought then in its third year. Rory McIlroy salutes the crowd as a Masters champion. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Nobody quite expected they were asking those questions in merely the prelude part of The Great Longing. The drought was adrenally at the Masters last month, which McIlroy says has freed him up and he is now, in his own words, playing in majors with house money. 'I'm a little scared of what it could do for him moving forward', says Canadian golfer Adam Hadwin. 'To get through that, now he knows how to and I wouldn't be shocked to see him roll off two or three more Masters in the next five years. I also wouldn't be shocked to see him go for a grand slam in one year.' A Rory Slam really is an absurd ambition, though his comfort at Quail Hollow has bred the chatter. McIlroy has proven he can win around Quail Hollow beneath all weather and in all moods, and with the major millstone finally left shattered and in dust at Augusta, the stars are present and ready to be pushed into line. Written by Gavin Cooney and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won't find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women's sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here .
The 42
13-05-2025
- Sport
- The 42
'One of my favourite places in the world' - Why Quail Hollow sets McIlroy up for absurd tilt at the Rory Slam
THERE ARE MEANS of seeking relief in golf without turning to a rules official. For Rory McIlroy, his has usually been to make a trip to Charlotte and turn down Gleneagles Road to Quail Hollow golf club. It was here in 2010 that McIlroy underlined his arrival on the PGA Tour, winning his first title to a delightful Jim Nantz flourish from the commentary booth. Welcome to the big time, Rory McIlroy! That victory made him the youngest winner on the PGA Tour since Tiger Woods, and he did it in characteristically stomach-swooping fashion. He eagled the 16th hole on Friday to make the cut right on the number, before he set a course-record 62 on Sunday to sprint home to a four-shot win. McIlroy poses with the trophy after his first Quail Hollow victory in 2010. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo That course record stood for five years until McIlroy took a further shot off it on Saturday en route to a seven-shot victory, still the largest winning margin in the history of the oft-renamed Quail Hollow Championship. The place has also been a balm in troubled times. McIlroy arrived here in May 2021 amid what qualifies as a slough in form by his heady standards. Without a win since November 2019, McIlroy had dropped to 15th in the world – his lowest ranking in 12 years – and was suffering from a familiar ailment known as an over-exposure to Bryson DeChambeau. Advertisement DeChambeau was then in full Hulk mode, and McIlroy lost his swing as he was spending too much time trying to match Bryson for ball speed. But having missed the cut at the Players Championship and the Masters, McIlroy slipped into the familiar Quail Hollow embrace and found himself two shots clear of Abraham Ancer standing on the 72nd tee. And such are the blissful effects of Quail Hollow, the place even lulled McIlroy into listening to his caddie. When McIlroy went out of position off the tee, his genius tendencies left him considering a wildly risky rescue shot before being talked down from the ledge by Harry Diamond, who instead told him to take a penalty drop and sign for a tournament-clinching bogey. Diamond won the argument. . . and McIlroy won the tournament. McIlroy signed off by describing Quail Hollow as one of his favourite places in the world. Diamond presumably agreed. There followed another win here last year, putting his foot on Xander Schauffele's throat with a storming Sunday finish to win by five shots. Schauffele went on to win two of the year's remaining three majors. Away from the victories, stats guru Justin Ray crunched the numbers for the best cumulative score to par at Quail Hollow since McIlroy debuted in 2010. McIlroy is 102-under across 50 rounds, with Rickie Fowler the next closest on -47, followed by Phil Mickelson on -44. Though McIlroy didn't defend his latest Wells Fargo title last week, he said he didn't feel like he was defending it either. Hosting the PGA Championship this week left the Tour event dereacinated, and so it popped up in Philadelphia instead. Hence McIlroy says this week feels more like a title defence instead. While not strictly true, there is a sense that McIlroy's at least playing with what the Americans would call home field advantage. His snug course fit here is summed up by Brooks Koepka's description of Quail Hollow as a 'bombers' paradise.' Only Aldrich Potgieter and Niklas Norgaard are driving the ball further than McIlroy on the PGA Tour this year, and while the equivalent stats on LIV are patchy and unreliable, we have enough evidence at this point to say only really DeChambeau can live with McIlroy off the tee. McIlroy's power game thus gives him the muscle to wrestle the course into submission. Quail Hollow's primary defences are firm greens and, this week, thickened rough mowed back in the direction of the tee. McIlroy's distance gives him greater control when attacking those greens, while he has greater power than most to punch out of that rough. These are merely the blatant advantages as the course, in golferspeak, fits his eye. It is built for his signature right-to-left draw, and while McIlroy was extremely inaccurate off the tee in Philadelphia – finding only eight fairways across the closing two rounds - he attributed this at least partly to the lack of architecture around the Philadelphia course. He feels more comfortable when he has targets, he explained, be they grandstands, TV towers, or great big advertising logos, which he has always found easily around Quail Hollow. 'I would argue he's the best driver of the ball I've ever seen, and that is extremely important here,' said Justin Thomas when asked as to why the course suits McIlroy so well. 'But I think his shot shape, I think this golf course fits a high draw really, really well. That's a tremendous advantage or threat at any golf course, but I feel like a place like this, where it doesn't necessarily require a lot of thought or strategy off the tee, it's generally pulling out driver and just I need to hit this as far and straight as possible, and he's really, really good at that.' Thomas won the 2017 PGA Championship when it was last held at Quail Hollow, at which McIlroy finished in a tie for 22nd place that was mitigated by a rib injury. Ahead of that event, he said he didn't have anything left to prove, as questions began to accrete about a major drought then in its third year. Rory McIlroy salutes the crowd as a Masters champion. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Nobody quite expected they were asking those questions in merely the prelude part of The Great Longing. The drought was adrenally at the Masters last month, which McIlroy says has freed him up and he is now, in his own words, playing in majors with house money. 'I'm a little scared of what it could do for him moving forward', says Canadian golfer Adam Hadwin. 'To get through that, now he knows how to and I wouldn't be shocked to see him roll off two or three more Masters in the next five years. I also wouldn't be shocked to see him go for a grand slam in one year.' A Rory Slam really is an absurd ambition, though his comfort at Quail Hollow has bred the chatter. McIlroy has proven he can win around Quail Hollow beneath all weather and in all moods, and with the major millstone finally left shattered and in dust at Augusta, the stars are present and ready to be pushed into line.
Irish Examiner
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Rory McIlroy goes back to first love, where back-to-back majors feels fated
Can a time warp also be timeless? With Nick Faldo on the microphone all things are possible. Roll the video and Rory McIlroy is so clearly a previous incarnation of himself. The threads: a brown, baby blue and green striped polo doesn't strike our 2025 eyes as 2010 chic but something your oul fella would've worn to mow the lawn back then. It's matched with a pair of blinding white pants that billow around McIlroy's 20-year-old thighs and calves, yet to be bulked. Saturday night fever meets Sunday afternoon starboy. There's the dark, twisting curls bursting out of the bottom of his cap and a little puppy fat around the chin and cheeks. Rory Óg or OG Rory, whichever you prefer. Even in redux mode, McIlroy skilfully straddles thorny things like the Irish Language Act. Up in the commentary box above the 18th green, Faldo is the same Faldo, his only incarnation. 'That was a very warm welcome for a young…foreign…lad. Beautiful,' stumbles Faldo, who has belatedly become an skilled pundit but back then could sound like an Accidental Country Club Partridge waiting to happen. 'I should think [he'll be] lagging up for a par four.' Thought wrong, Nick. From 43 feet back on the 72nd and final hole of the 2010 Quail Hollow Championship, McIlroy sends a wondrous putt coursing confidently up and then turning towards the hole. 'How about making it?' asks Faldo's CBS partner Jim Nantz, meeting the moment with a tone and pitch that told viewers this wasn't a standard Tour Sunday but a date and an occasion marking the beginning of something big. The birdie drops. 'Ha-haaa,' Nantz howls. 'Welcome to the big time, Rory McIlroy. Wow, what a finish!' The record shows that the big time began on May 2, 2010. Fifteen years and 10 days later McIlroy made his way back here Monday. He was greeted with angry skies that emptied a deluge down. It will clear and dry out as the week goes on. Anyway, there are likely no climactic conditions which could make McIlroy uncomfortable here. From that week to this, Quail Hollow, a rolling, rippling former dairy farm south of Charlotte, has become the Holywood man's favourite stop. So much so that he's looked at making it an extended stay. After winning last year's Wells Fargo here, racking up his fourth victory on a track where he has twice set the course record and made 10 top-10s out of 14 visits, he admitted he'd spent time on Zillow, a Stateside version of Daft, browsing nearby houses. McIlroy is a sponsor's ultimate dream because he can say with believable sincerity that he likes many things, many places, many products. When it comes to Quail Hollow, however, he speaks of love. Leaving the Truist Championship in Philadelphia on Sunday to travel down to North Carolina for his tilt at a third Wannamaker Trophy this week, he again sounded smitten. 'I'm in a good place. I didn't feel like I played all that well this week, I still finished seventh. Even what I feel is my bad golf, I'm still there or thereabouts,' McIlroy said. 'A couple tweaks, especially going to a place I love like Quail Hollow, and I'm in a really good spot.' You never forget your first love and diving back into footage from that scintillating Sunday in 2010 offers early evidence as to why McIlroy would make this course his own. Yet it's important too to rewind just a little more, 48 hours, to when a late eagle ensured he made the cut by the bare minimum. In a fitful first few months Stateside it had looked to be another missed cut until it wasn't. From there, the breakout began. McIlroy carded 10 birdies on the Saturday to move into the fourth-last group on Sunday. He was paired with America's own starlet, Anthony Kim, chasing Angel Cabrera, Phil Mickelson and Davis Love atop the leaderboard. The chase would turn into a rout, McIlroy firing eight birdies and an eagle in a course-record 62. In a fascinating, granular breakdown last week exploring why McIlroy is so damn good here, Golf Digest began with the most common observation: if you drive it far and well, Quail Hollow rewards you. This is true. But going deeper, the analysis suggested the course eschews the wedge competitions we see too often elsewhere and instead lets McIlroy be the most effective version of his 'long-range sniper' self. While that monster birdie putt on 18 became the image of his historic 2010 breakthrough, the shot which better fits that analysis and perhaps best explains this magical meeting of course and player came at the long 15th. A booming drive left McIlroy 206 yards back in the fairway. He pulled out a 5-iron and arrowed it into a couple of feet. The eagle pushed him three clear of Mickelson and he navigated the daunting closing three holes, the Green Mile, with all of that momentum finishing with a magical flourish. The young star subplot proved a rout too: he bettered Kim's score by eight shots and as McIlroy returns here the newest member of the grand slam club, Kim's current career 'renaissance' sees him finish last or close enough to it every week on the LIV Tour. Since that inaugural win, this place has been both familiar and fertile ground. It has served as a springboard but also a source of solace in rough times for McIlroy. With his greatest weight lifted at last month's Masters, the opportunity to win back-to-back majors here of all places feels almost fated. 'When you're not winning, when you're not delivering, it becomes a burden. [Rory] will be a lot more comfortable with who he is now.' Those words are Padraig Harrington's. They didn't come after Augusta 2025 but Quail Hollow 2010 after the Dubliner had hung around to see the breakthrough. Fifteen years later at this same place, it's a quote that feels, well, timeless.
