(Photo credit score: GREG LOVETT/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK by way of Imagn Images)
The begin of the PGA Tour’s signature occasion schedule attracts the likes of Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and extra to make their season debuts stateside on the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, starting Thursday in Pebble Beach, Calif.
The tour normally kicks off every season with the Sentry (previously Sentry Tournament of Champions) on Maui in January, however that occasion was scrapped this yr as a consequence of drought circumstances on the island.
Thus, the primary $20 million purse of the season is up for grabs at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill Golf Course. The elite discipline of 80 will play one spherical apiece on every course earlier than Pebble Beach hosts the Saturday and Sunday rounds.
This is the place McIlroy received his first title in 2025, which vaulted the Northern Irishman right into a memorable yr that noticed him take The Players Championship, finish his 11-year main drought on the Masters and prevail with Team Europe on the Ryder Cup.
Now McIlroy is looking for a extra persistently nice yr, the sort Scottie Scheffler was in a position to put up in 2025.
‘If I had a critique of myself final yr, (it is) that I did not carry the consistency that I perhaps would have needed put up the Masters,’ McIlroy mentioned. ‘I feel a few of that’s, you understand, type of comprehensible, however Scottie simply had his seventeenth top-10 in a row. He brings — even you take a look at him final week, he shoots 2 over within the first spherical and he simply items it collectively once more, finds a method, has an opportunity to win on Sunday. He’s relentless.
‘I’ve had good runs like that, however I’ve at all times been slightly extra up and down. I feel anybody that desires to catch Scottie or get anyplace shut goes to should persistently carry that type of recreation week in and week out like he does.’
Scheffler and McIlroy, the highest two gamers on the planet rankings, will share a discipline this week for the primary time because the Tour Championship final August. McIlroy stayed busy, enjoying in India for the primary time and including the Australian Open to his schedule earlier than the DP World Tour’s two-week Dubai run extra just lately.
Scheffler received The American Express in his first begin of 2026 and tied for third on the WM Phoenix Open final week regardless of opening with a 73. His 66 consecutive made cuts is the longest lively streak on tour.
FedEx Cup champion Tommy Fleetwood of England makes his first tour begin within the U.S. because the Tour Championship, which marked his first time profitable on American soil.
‘You take confidence from the golf that you’ve got performed. It was an incredible interval of golf for me. I mentioned on the time that I’m form of hopeful that is how I play golf from this level on,’ Fleetwood mentioned.
‘There’s nonetheless loads of issues that I have not achieved that I wish to within the recreation, so that they preserve you centered and so they preserve you going and so they preserve you motivated. I feel I’m not nearly as good of a golfer, nonetheless, as I’d wish to be, in order that’s nonetheless there.’
Among the extra well-established PGA Tour stars is a brand new identify who has rocketed to fifth on the planet rankings.
Chris Gotterup, 26, leads the FedEx Cup standings thanks to 2 wins in his first three begins of the season. After capturing the season-opening Sony Open in Hawaii, he beat Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama in a playoff final Sunday in Phoenix.
The former faculty golf star has received 4 instances on tour in a brief span, together with head-to-head towards McIlroy ultimately yr’s Scottish Open. This is his first time enjoying the Pebble Beach occasion.
‘I feel everybody understands out right here how exhausting it’s to win,’ Gotterup mentioned. ‘We have been joking round — Scottie was following me at lunch and he is like, ‘I’m simply going to eat what you are consuming.’ I used to be like, yeah, he is doing fairly good on his personal so I’m not too frightened about him.
‘At some level once we get a while off I’ll go house and have a good time with everybody. Yeah, it has been lots of enjoyable.’
–Field Level Media