This week’s PGA Championship venue is so well-suited to golf’s newest Grand Slam champion that Jordan Spieth jokingly described it as ‘Rory McIlroy Country Club’.
While the comment from Spieth – also looking to complete the career Grand Slam – was slightly tongue in cheek, there is no doubt that the Quail Hollow Club presents a glorious opportunity for McIlroy to continue his impressive start to the season.
It’s the course where McIlroy claimed his maiden PGA Tour victory in 2010 and has won three more times since, including last year’s Wells Fargo Championship, making it the venue where he has enjoyed more success in his career than any other.
McIlroy has already won three times in 2025, following his AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am success with a second career win at The Players before ending his 11-year wait for a major with a dramatic play-off victory at The Masters.
That emotional success – on a roller-coaster Sunday – was the elusive victory required to become just the sixth player in men’s golf to complete the career Grand Slam, with many now expecting McIlroy to follow that Augusta National win with more major success.
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Take a look back at Rory McIlroy’s best shots from his historical 2025 Masters victory at Augusta National
Is McIlroy the man to beat?
McIlroy had already stated he would be heading to Quail Hollow with ‘nothing but positive vibes’ and ‘a lot less pressure’ than past majors, while a strong performance at last week’s Truist Championship coming without him being far from his brilliant best.
McIlroy found just eight fairways over the final two rounds but still played the last 27 holes bogey-free, leaving him six strokes behind winner Sepp Straka and seeing him post his sixth worldwide top-10 of the season.
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Rory McIlroy says his win at The Masters means he is ‘feeling lighter’ going into the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow
“I think I’m in a good place,” McIlroy said on Sunday. “I didn’t feel like I played all that well this week, I still finished seventh. Even my — what I feel is my bad golf, I’m still there or thereabouts.
“A couple little improvements and little tweaks, especially going to a place I love like Quail Hollow, and I feel like I’m in a really good spot.”
McIlroy’s previous two major titles came in successive events, as he followed a two-shot win in The Open at Royal Liverpool in 2014 by winning the PGA Championship later that summer, while another win this week would races hopes of a potential ‘calendar slam’.
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Andrew Coltart discusses how important Rory McIlroy’s Masters victory is for his career and what he can do next
“He is that kind of player that when he gets going, he’s very, very explosive,” former major champion Curtis Strange said. “He could be the really next great, great story for the [calendar] Grand Slam this year.
“We have expected so much out of Rory because it’s kind of a back-handed compliment. We love you and we think you’re so good, so why don’t you win more? Rory wins a lot but, as far as majors, he had disappointed himself a little bit over the last years.”
The Scheffler and McIlroy show ahead?
Scottie Scheffler will remain top of the world rankings regardless of McIlroy’s result this week, with the two-time Masters champion also arriving in form after a dominant eight-shot win in his last start at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
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Highlights from the fourth round of the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Texas, where Scottie Scheffler cruised to victory
The world No 1 has six top-10 finishes in his nine appearances this season, including fourth place behind McIlroy at The Masters, while Scheffler has finished no worse than tied-eighth in four of his last five PGA Championship appearances.
Scheffler contended during Xander Schauffele‘s record-breaking success at Valhalla last year despite being arrested ahead of his second round, where he began his warm-up in a jail cell in one of the strangest days in major history.
Schauffele returns looking to become the first back-to-back winner of a men’s major since Brooks Koepka in 2018-19, with the world No 3 currently on a run of 12 consecutive top-20 finishes in majors and also holding a strong record at Quail Hollow.
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Highlights of the final round from the 2024 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club, where Xander Schauffele claimed a maiden major victory
“I’m aware that I’ve played really well there and come up short two years in a row,” said Schauffele, who finished runner-up at the Wells Fargo Championship in 2023 and 2024. “I think it fits my eye for whatever reason and I’ve been up at the top of the leaderboard for the last two years.
“I don’t see why this year should be an issue. I guess writers call it horses for courses. For us, golfers sort of play well in stretches and like certain courses for some reasons. I’ve sort of had that feeling when I’m on property there. So the hope is to sort of keep that going.”
Can Spieth follow McIlroy into the Grand Slam club?
Jordan Spieth’s last major title came at The Open in 2017 and he has not won on the PGA Tour since 2022, but he carded a closing 62 in the recent CJ Byron Nelson to show signs of a return to form.
The three-time major champion enters his ninth opportunity to complete the career Grand Slam, ten years on from winning The Masters and US Open, with Strange unconvinced that Spieth will make history this week.
Jordan Spieth has previously finished runner-up at the PGA Championship in 2015
“I think he’s working very hard at it,” Strange said. “Let’s not forget he’s coming off a wrist injury, surgery. That takes time. When he plays well like he did last week, consistently well, shoots a really good last round, that speaks volumes.
“Let’s not forget when he won all the majors and all the tournaments at such a young age, they came so quickly. Obviously there’s some kind of let down after something like that and can you sustain that over the next eight or 10 years? He didn’t.”
Spieth’s childhood friend Justin Thomas was the last winner of a PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, his 2017 success the first of two major titles, with the former world No 1 already a winner on the PGA Tour this season.
Thomas won the RBC Heritage last month and has three other runner-up finishes this season, including at last week’s Truist Championship, putting him back inside the world’s top five and a prime contender to lift the Wanamaker Trophy for a third time.
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Justin Thomas claimed a dramatic play-off victory against Andrew Novak at the RBC Heritage, sinking an impressive putt for birdie to secure the title
Stars finding form ahead of major season?
It would be wrong to discount reigning US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, who was runner-up to Schauffele last year before his dramatic victory over McIlroy at Pinehurst No 2.
DeChambeau has top-six finishes in five of his last eight majors and won a LIV Golf League event in Korea earlier this month, having been runner-up in his previous start in Mexico, with the two-time major champion one of a 15-strong LIV Golf contingent in action.
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Highlights from Bryson DeChambeau’s final round from The Masters, where he played alongside McIlroy and fell short in his bid for major victory
“My goal is to win every tournament that I show up to,” DeChambeau said after his win. “Scottie is on a great run. Joaquin Niemann is on a great run. Jon Rahm has been playing well.
“There’s a lot of star-studded talent out there right now that’s going to be in the PGA Championship. We’re going to be battling it out. Glad to have pushed through in this victory and won this event, but there’s a lot more work to be done this year.”
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Bryson DeChambeau reveals that Rory McIlroy did not talk to him at all throughout his victorious final round at The Masters
Rahm has maintained his run of top-10 finishes in every LIV Golf League start, while Ryder Cup team-mates Sepp Straka – other than Rory McIlroy – is the only multiple winner on the PGA Tour this season after his success in Philadelphia on Sunday.
Straka played on the final day alongside Shane Lowry, who was disappointed after another near-miss but is inside the world’s top-10 after his second second-place finish of the year, while Ludvig Åberg and Viktor Hovland are other Europeans to have won on the PGA Tour this season.
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Sepp Straka claimed the Truist Championship after a dramatic finale, where Shane Lowry made a costly error on the final hole
The possible storylines that could unfold over the coming days are almost limitless, with so many of golf’s biggest names are coming into form at just the right time. If the week ahead offers a fraction of the drama we saw at Augusta National last month, the fight for PGA Championship victory could be one of the best yet.
When is the PGA Championship live on Sky Sports?
Sky Sports is the home of the majors, including the PGA Championship, with over 40 hours of live coverage from the four tournament days and a host of extra programming available throughout the week.
“Live from The PGA Championship” will offer eight hours of extended build-up, news and interviews on both Tuesday and Wednesday, before live coverage from the opening round begins on Thursday at 1pm on Sky Sports Golf. Get Sky Sports or stream with NOW.
