Rory McIlroy’s return to action in the Truist Championship – his first tournament since retaining the Masters title and his only pre-US PGA Championship outing – finished, quite literally, with a limp.
“I’ve got a blister on my pinky toe on my right foot. But it’s underneath my nail. So I can’t really get to it or so it’s a little sore, but I’ll be all right,” said McIlroy, who ultimately finished tied-19th, 10 strokes adrift of winner Kristoffer Reitan.
McIlroy’s 75 in Saturday’s third round undid any hopes of claiming a fifth title at Quail Hollow but an hour-long range session that night seemed to fix “a left miss” that crept into his swing.
“I just have to straighten that out. It seems like that’s sort of my bad habit at the minute and I just have to be aware of it,” said McIlroy, who flew home to Florida on Sunday night rather than heading to Philadelphia for the PGA at Aronimink, planning to spend a day working on his swing at the Bear’s Club before travelling to the season’s second Major.
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McIlroy recently paid a one-day site visit to Aronimink to familiarise himself with a course he last played in the 2018 BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup playoffs.
“It was wet in 2018 and the greens didn’t play as fast or as severe as what I felt like they played last week when I played. So it’s not a long golf course, but the big defence is the greens and they can tuck the pins away if they want to,” said McIlroy. “But it was nice to get an early look at it. It just means that the week of the tournament you’re not under pressure to play a lot of holes, and historically, the practice rounds at the PGA can be excruciatingly long, so it’s probably going to just be nine holes Tuesday, nine holes Wednesday.”
McGinley signs off on Grange redesign project
Former Ryder Cup captain and player Paul McGinley will be a busy man at the US PGA Championship in Aronimink Golf Club, Philadelphia this week in his role as analyst with both Sky Sports and the Golf Channel.
But before hightailing it off to Pennsylvania for the second Major of the season, McGinley signed off on a project very close to his heart in officially opening the new holes he designed at Grange Golf Club, where he has been a member since he was a junior.
[ Rory McIlroy says game has ‘straightened out’ ahead of PGA as Reitan wins TruistOpens in new window ]
The completion of the Love course marked the culmination of a seven-year project and also involved the unveiling of a statue of James Braid by the first tee, a homage to the five-time Open champion whose 1928 visit to Grange shaped the course’s original design.
McGinley, acting through McGinley Golf Course Architecture & Design, framed the project as an exercise in “preservation and progression”, emphasising that the redevelopment was not a wholesale redesign but a respectful refinement of Braid’s original vision.
Using historic maps and archival photographs, the work focused on preserving Braid’s strategic principles while modernising the course for contemporary play with USGA-specification greens, sand-based tees, SportBond-lined bunkers for improved drainage, resilience and durability and landscape improvements which included selective clearing, new planting and visual refinements.
McGinley’s objective in overseeing the project was to ensure the upgrades integrated “naturally into the mature landscape rather than feeling artificially imposed”, and he acknowledged the collaborative effort behind the project in thanking club officers, committees and management, including Niall Barry (2026 captain and chair of the development committee), Jonathan Palmer (director of golf), Mark Bewley (golf course superintendent), and giving special recognition to project coordinator and fellow director Joe Bedford for helping deliver the ambitious programme.
Word of mouth
“I was three-over through three and then in my head I’m thinking, ‘I could shoot 81 here.’” – Alex Fitzpatrick on his thoughts early in his final round at the Truist Championship. But he regained his composure to shoot a 73 for 272 and a tied-fourth finish behind Kristoffer Reitan. Fitzpatrick’s great run of recent form – which included winning the Indian Open on the DP World Tour and teaming up with brother Matt to win the Zurich Classic on the PGA Tour – has earned him his PGA card.
By the numbers
4 – There is a quartet of Irish players in the field for the 108th edition of the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club: Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Pádraig Harrington and Tom McKibbin.
On this day ... May 12th, 1996
Pádraig Harrington will be competing in his 27th US PGA Championship when he tees up at Aronimink this week. But a measure of the Dubliner’s golfing longevity – in a career where he won 43 professional titles, including three Majors – is that this day marks the 30th anniversary since his breakthrough win in the Peugeot Spanish Open on the DP World Tour.
Harrington’s maiden success came in just his 10th start on the European Tour after a hugely successful amateur career in which he also studied accountancy as a backup plan, should his dream of playing professionally not go as planned.
But rounds of 70-64-67-71 for a total of 16-under-par 272 in the weather-interrupted event at Club de Campo Villa in Madrid gave Harrington a four-stroke winning margin over Gordon Brand jnr to kick-start what would prove to be a glorious career, highlighted by his back-to-back claret jugs at the Open in 2007 and 2008 and his Wanamaker Cup win in the 2008 US PGA Championship.
Social Swing
Didn’t have my best stuff this week, but a lot of good @TruistChamp. Always enjoy being back at Quail Hollow. Next up ... the city of brotherly love for the @PGAChampionship. Let’s get it – Justin Thomas on a mission in Philadelphia
A great time for Kristoffer Reitan to add a @PingTour PLD Milled Ally Blue H to the bag. With more toe hang than his previous putter, the custom head was created so that he could see an uninterrupted sight line. He also added the G440 K 9 degree w/ Mitsubishi Tensei White 1K 60TX – Alistair Cameron (@ACameronWRX) with some background on Reitan’s equipment changes that brought a first PGA Tour win for the Norwegian in the Truist Championship
People keep talking about shrinking the driver head size but guys are hitting the mini driver as a fairway finder ... it’s not going to change much – PGA Tour player Michael Kim gives his Tuppence worth on driver head size.
In the bag
Kristoffer Reitan (Truist Championship)
Driver: Ping G440K (9 degrees)
3-wood: Ping G440 Max (15 degrees)
5-wood: Ping G440 Max (21 degrees)
Irons: Ping Blueprint S (4-9)
Wedges: Ping S259 (46, 50, 54 and 58 degrees)
Putter: Ping PLD Custom Ally Blue H
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
