Just a month after Rory McIlroy made history by landing the career Grand Slam (when he won the 2025 US Masters), the game’s greatest players will head to North Carolina and the Charlotte suburb of Quail Hollow for the US PGA Championship. Now the second major of the calendar year, the US PGA still struggles to match the other three big ones in terms of prestige. That said, this year’s edition of the tournament that was first played in 1916 promises to be quite something.
Rory’s win at Augusta ended his long drought in the majors and many pundits believe there is now a chance that the floodgates will open and he will get back to the prolific form of his youth. His battle with world number one Scottie Scheffler is another intriguing subplot and Scheffler showed he has returned to his very best form by romping to his first victory of the year at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. The 28-year-old from New Jersey shot a record-low score of 253, winning by eight shots on an incredible score of 31 under par.
If the battle between the top-ranked pair of players in the world is something to get excited about, then the recent return to the winner’s enclosure of Bryson DeChambeau is certainly another. The American won a tournament for the first time since thwarting McIlroy at the 2024 US Open, and after his late implosion at the Masters earlier in the year he will be keen to go head-to-head with Rory once again.
The Favourites
There is still a little way to go until Rory and co will tee it up at Quail Hollow, with the Truist Championship, worth a cool $20m and won by McIlroy himself in 2024 (his fourth win in the event), set to take place the week before. That event, at the interestingly named Philadelphia Cricket Club, starts on the 8th of May, and will attract a high-class field.
The tournament is normally played at … Quail Hollow, with the Truist Championship the event’s new name, and the Wissahickon Course is its host just for this year, for obvious reasons. Rory’s wins at the Wells Fargo, as it was known (though his first victory, in 2010, came when the tournament was called the Quail Hollow Championship), all came at Quail Hollow so it is no surprise to see the Holywood ace vying with Scheffler for favouritism. In fact, given his course form, some may be surprised to see that it is the American who just about tops the betting.
Many firms price both men at 9/2 but Rory can be backed at the slightly longer odds of 5/1 if you shop around. Big Bryson and Xander Schauffele come next at 12/1, with Ludvig Aberg, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa and others all priced between about 16/1 and 20/1. With many of the top players competing in the Truist, including Rory, Aberg, Morikawa, Schauffele and Thomas, we have a brilliant two weeks of golf ahead.
The Course
Quail Hollow is a relatively new course, certainly by UK standards, and was opened in 1961. It was designed by George Cobb, whose most famous creation is, arguably, the par-three course at Augusta. As with most top courses used in big events, it has been modified a number of times over the years. It is a par 71 layout that features two par threes and a par five on the first nine, and two par threes and two par fives on the back nine holes.
It offers a tough but fair test at around 7,600 yards and scoring has generally been good. Rory’s quartet of wins have come thanks to scores of 15 under, 21 under in 2015, 10 under and, last year, 17 under, so this is certainly a course that can be got at.
As well as hosting a big event on the PGA Tour for a number of years, Quail Hollow also held the Presidents Cup in 2022. It was also the venue for the 2017 edition of the US PGA Championship when Justin Thomas triumphed. With the American winning his first tournament in almost three years recently, at the RBC Heritage, it is easy to see why he is also amongst the most fancied players.
Back in 2017 he shot a 276 eight-under total to win by two shots from a trio of players including Patrick Reed. McIlroy finished much further back, in a tie for 22nd, a closing round of 68 moving him up after three rounds in the 70s.
The course will undoubtedly be a little more testing than the standard set-up used for the regular tournament. Eight years ago only the top nine and ties broke par over the four days, so we are unlikely to see players ripping it up as they have done in the days of the Wells Fargo. Even so, with many of the field being extremely familiar with Quail Hollow, and Thomas, McIlroy and others having won here, we should still see plenty of birdies.
Many big changes were made ahead of the 2017 US PGA Championship but the players have had a good look at it since then and so despite more tweaks, there will be few surprises. The final three holes are Quail Hollow’s signature and, known as the Green Mile – a reference to death row, via the Stephen King book of the same name – we are sure to see plenty of action on the closing stretch, especially in the final round.
The 18th is ranked the second-hardest hole on the course and is a fitting way to close a major, should it go the distance. This long par four, of around 500 yards, features a creek down the left, a bunker-guarded green and plenty of scope for things to go wrong. With the 16th hole a testing par four that will play over 500 yards and the 17th a monster par three not far shy of 250 yards, this closing stretch is well worthy of its nickname.
Seeing Rory, Scheffler and the best of the rest slugging it out over four rounds at Quail Hollow promises to be a treat. With the best players at the top of their games at present, this should be a thriller.